Seducing the King
by Snootiegirl99
Summary: Everything about their relationship is a chess game. They are so evenly matched that neither ever wins or loses. They are as diametrically opposed as black and white although as alike as the number and shape of pieces and their legal moves. They challenge each other; they feint and retreat. The fight off attacks. But the playing ground is level. . . . X-Men: First Class
1. Chapter 1: The Game

**The Game**

_Chess is an ancient game played around the world by many different cultures and peoples. The board consists of small dark and light squares interspersed with each other equally on an eight by eight total square. Both opponents have the same number and types of pieces when beginning the game, and no two playing pieces can occupy one square at a time in the course of play. _

_Before the first move, each has the same chance of winning._

* * *

"The Modern Defense, Charles?" Erik asked with less disbelief and more irony dripping from his words.

"Mmm-hmm," was Charles' only response as he leaned into the chess board, his fingers and thumb caressing the piece before directing it to its new location.

As Charles let go of the piece, it wobbled just slightly. He allowed this but did not watch it himself. His eyes had languidly crossed the board and strafed across Erik's lap up to his torso and then neck. When they rose to his face and finally his eyes, Charles was ready to let go of the piece and sit back into his high-backed chair. He smiled a very tight grin, no teeth, thin lips.

Erik held his gaze for a moment, remembering the whiteness of the fingers, how they paled even in comparison to the white of the chess pieces. The steel in Erik's bright blue eyes was met with the watery pools in Charles'.

Even when laughing, even in extreme smugness, those eyes still looked like they were on the verge of unleashing torrents of tears. _Was that a function of his telepathy, _Erik wondered. _Charles could never fully express himself because he was bombarded by others so constantly? It could explain his extreme amounts of empathy with the pathetic human creatures._

After this moment passed with no words between them, Erik deliberately disengaged his eyes from his opponent's and surveyed the chessboard. He already knew what his first move would be.

* * *

_"I know you can do this."_

_"I know I can too. I don't need your cheerleading. Look after yourself for a change."_

_"That's what I have you for."_

* * *

Erik reached for one of his pawns to begin his defense. The Queen's Gambit was Erik's bit of visible traditionalism-hundreds of years old.

Everything else about Erik screamed nouveau, zeitgeist, 'boss' in the slang. He was not traditional, from his turtlenecks to his leather jackets. If revenge hadn't been his band of choice, he might have been one of those youths on the stage for Ed Sullivan. Swiveling his hips and making young women swoon. He would smoke and drink with the same dedication he gave to tracking Schmidt.

Nothing halfway. Nothing superfluous and useless. Like sympathy or forgiveness.

But Charles knew that Erik gave the appearance of the modern man to cover his ruthless pursuit of old fashioned vengeance. He was methodical, maniacal in his quest. In everything, really.

Erik grasped the pawn and moved it deliberately. The piece slammed down in its new position, occupying it as Erik occupied his chair-with strength and style. With purpose and decision.

Restraint, Charles reflected with a slightly upraised eyebrow, wasn't Erik's flaw. Erik put everything on the line, his anger and determination on his sleeve, no matter if he was discussing mutant rights or the weather.

Charles couldn't help being drawn to that flaring even as he tried to quell it.

* * *

_"I never thought you'd show this soft side," he said as he cupped the other man's angled chin over his own shoulder._

_An incredulous scoff. "I don't have a soft side. You're imagining things," was the reply._

* * *

Playing together had taught them how to anticipate the next move, when to expect the unexpected-although Charles was surprisingly better at the 'unexpected' than Erik. Years of systematic Nazi hunting had caused him to rely on methods that worked time and again without sparing the effort for creativity or innovation.

For now, the game continued sedately with each man leaning forward from his reclined position to reach the pieces. A sip of bourbon here, a clearing of a throat there. Each one seemed to be contemplating the game before him, forming a strategy. That's what it would look like to the outside observer. Any of the 'children,' as they called them, who wouldn't be caught dead in the library, Charles' study always, would see it as a tense competition over bragging rights.

But these two men knew different. They knew that the game was nearly on auto-pilot. They were devising the strategy for their conversation. They were planning their next verbal move.

"Does the President mean his threats, do you think?" Charles finally asked. First move.

"He thinks he does," Erik responded. "I think he's bluffing." Countermove.

"Why do you think that?" Charles pressed.

_What's he getting at_, Erik wondered. Their pieces continued their march toward each other and their mutual demise.

Sighing half dramatically, Erik lifted his glass and swirled the contents. "No one wants to be the author of the destruction of the human race. This is all a power play for political clout."

"Indeed," Charles half-heartedly agreed. "It's a good thing we know about Shaw and will be there to stop him." Charles used his d pawn to capture Erik's a c5. And, as usual, Erik countered in the same manner-as he always did. He found a way to perform the same action as Charles but make it completely different.

This level playing field of a chess board typically allowed them to see all of each other plainly enough. Move, countermove. Charles softly pushing his advantage; Erik deftly avoiding any traps no matter how insignificant or luxurious. Here they learned how the other saw. How the other was seeing. They pursued their agendas as if they would always remain parallel and not coming crashing into each other at some point in the future.

"Will we?" Erik asked casually.

"Are you asking will we be there, or will we stop him?" Charles asked in return, to clarify.

"Will we stop him? I've been chasing this man my whole life, Charles. He's slippery," Erik tried to keep his anger out of his voice. It wasn't Charles' fault that he had failed.

"I think the answer is-both. We will be there. We will stop him. We have to," he confirmed. For Charles, it is that simple. But Erik wasn't so sure about this motley crew of mutant teenagers.

Erik agreed that they had to, but for different reasons than Charles. Charles meant, Erik knew, that they had to stop Shaw to help the humans and build goodwill toward mutants. Erik meant they had to stop him because this was the best chance he would have to do so, teenage help and all. He would at least not be alone this time.

They lapsed back into silence, drinking, thinking, and playing. They were also wondering who had won this latest verbal contest. Perhaps neither. Perhaps the opposition was what was important-not the victory.

_"You're more verbal than I imagined you'd be," he whispered._

_"And you are much less," came the firm reply._

_"Perhaps we should adopt a policy of dropping our expectations at the door."_

_"Agreed. After you, Charles."_

Glancing back to the board, Charles saw that Erik was proceeding in his predictable fashion despite his bravado and slicked-back hair. For all of Charles' traditional take on humanity, academics, family, and-god-clothing, he was non-traditional in his chess technique. Secretly, Erik had always wondered if there was a Charles that no one really knew-covered in yards of houndstooth. A man who craved chaos and power as much as he, Erik, did. Would Erik ever be introduced to this Charles who he glimpsed across the checkered squares?

For his part, Charles had known that he and Erik were equals in all ways that mattered to him. From the moment he had felt Erik in the ice cold Atlantic off of Miami, he had known that they were supposed to be-partners? Friends? Rivals? Whatever it turned out to be, they were meant to _be_-together. Their strengths were as well matched as their weaknesses.

Their backgrounds seemed as disparate as day and night on the surface, but the loneliness, the distance from others, and the need for acceptance were all the same. Erik and Charles had grown up in the same time, subject to the same world, feeling no more a part of it than the moon itself.

And then, they _knew_ each other. It was just that instantaneous. The looks, the tones of voice, the smallest motions spoke as much as their words from the first moment. This communication had developed even before the verbal confrontations, before the first time they had sat down at opposite sides of Charles' old chessboard. Collectively, their psyches decided that if they had to be apart from this Earth, they would have their own world in return. Thus, they orbited each other.

Therefore, this game had become their own as well. They were equally matched from opposite sides.

When they traveled together, recruiting, they had played chess in lots of different places. Washington D.C., diners, balanced on the edge of a tub while one of them bathed, even once in the car. Erik had driven, and Charles had managed the board.

Charles liked to surprise Erik by suggesting a game at inappropriate moments. It was part of his approach to the game. Why play in parks or in a warm, fire-lit study? No, let's pull it out in the middle of a strip club and take our turns between lap dances.

_"Honestly, these girls get paid for this," he remarked with exasperation._

_"But you don't like any of these girls . . ." he replied pithily._

_"You've just upset my rook."_

_"My apologies."_

"We leave early in the morning. Perhaps we shouldn't play this out tonight," Charles suggested as they sat, ironically, in a fire-lit study in Charles' family home.

Erik's eyes snapped up. "Why not?" he asked, genuinely perplexed. Why did they start if they had no intention of finishing?

"Sleep and all," Charles said vaguely with a slight wave of his left hand-his 'telepathy' hand, as Erik thought of it. Charles was sitting with his right leg slung over his left knee and his chin resting in his hand, looking for all the world like a college student. His boyish looks lent to the illusion. But the deepening creases around his eyes belied the carefree existence anymore.

Erik considered his reply as he watched Charles make another move on the board.

"Overrated," Erik finally muttered and shifted in his chair to rest both elbows on his knees. "And besides," he continued as he made his own move swiftly and decisively. "You haven't answered my question from earlier properly."

Charles looked up with faint surprise on his face. "I haven't?" he asked.

Erik smiled with thin lips pressed together to show just how hard he was holding back from spilling anger between them. They had always been able to resolve anything that cropped up between them over the board.

Charles tried again. "It isn't enough to say that mutation occurs randomly? It can't be predicted, Erik." Charles tried for a breezy tone to diffuse the tension that had settled between them.

Erik shook his head slowly. "I wasn't asking about prediction. I was asking about impetus. What would prompt a mutation that wasn't beneficial to the individual?"

Erik had learned a lot about genetics from Charles in a short amount of time. But he still struggled with some of the less scientific aspects of natural selection and 'survival of the fittest'.

Charles resorted to his earlier arguments, even though he knew that it would pique Erik.

"Birth defects are hardly beneficial, although a great majority of them are genetic, not developmental," he lectured. "However, light colored eyes mutated from dark colors as _Homo sapiens_ moved farther and farther away from the brightest sun at the equator." He was on a professorial roll now.

Erik held up both hands to stem the tide. "No!" he barked. "What is the benefit of Raven's mutation? What is she 'surviving' by developing her morphing ability?"

Charles folded his hands together in his lap, momentarily forgetting the chess game altogether. Discussing his sister with Erik was not his favorite pastime. They had a history of walking away from each other in the middle of these 'discussions.' She had been a type of 'off-limit' topic when they played chess.

The game required that they resolve the conflict.

Tilting his head to the side, Charles schooled his voice into neutrality and softness.

"Camouflage is always a beneficial adaptation," he intoned carefully.

* * *

_There was no room for words. They were exposing themselves in ways they never had before. There was nowhere to hide, even if they wanted to hide from each other. Here, now, in this place, they were in the same space, equals and mirrors. This special space admitted the two of them at once, against all of their conventional adherence to cultural norms and dictates. And no one else would ever fit here the same way._

TBC


	2. Chapter 2: The Pawn

**The Pawn**  
_Moving: The pawn piece can only move forward on the chessboard-he never looks back. When another piece is placed in front of a pawn, that pawn is trapped, immobile._

_Capture: To capture other pieces, the pawn must do so by moving forward diagonally. When there are no other pieces placed diagonally to the pawn for capture, he is similarly trapped._

_Trapped by his own rules._

* * *

When Erik caught up with Schmidt for the third time, it was in London. The former Nazi was in town to oversee the final touches on the Hellfire Club Europe headquarters. From here, he planned to consolidate power and powerful people from the Continent as Las Vegas worked for the U.S. He preferred to be present for the final touches of secret rooms and passageways to make sure they met his specifications exactly.

And then the people involved in creating such places mysteriously disappeared to ensure their secrecy.

Erik had been watching this new location for several days, hot on Schmidt's trail after learning from a low-level Belgian official of a new power center that was rising somewhere other than Russia or the U.S. Erik knew that Schmidt had to be involved when the official confided that there was something 'not natural' about the people who were running the power center. Mutants meant Schmidt as far as Erik knew.

Before he met Charles and Raven. Before he had found anyone like himself who wasn't automatically his enemy.

Perhaps that was part of Erik's rage as well. He hated not only Schmidt for how he had tortured him but hated himself for being born different. If he hadn't been a mutant, Schmidt wouldn't have cared about him. He wouldn't have killed his mother in cold blood. Erik could have been one more nameless inmate of the camps.

But his life was not meant to be nameless.

The final night before the opening of the Club was when Erik made his move. He broke into the back and found Schmidt and Emma Frost sitting amiably at a formica table on which sat a bottle of Scotch and two tumblers. The music pulsed from the speakers, and the lights blinked on and off in irregular patterns. Erik was standing three feet from the table before Schmidt noticed him. Emma had sensed him seconds earlier, but she knew better than to rob Schmidt of his fun.

"Erik," he drawled and saluted the younger man with his drink. He didn't look surprised to see someone in the club that should have been empty save him and his companion.

"Herr Doktor," was the reply Erik always offered. The moniker reminded Erik of his purpose, his torment, his mission. The name reminded Schmidt of past successes.

"You are getting better at finding me, young man," Schmidt said. He offered a smarmy smile. "I shall have to get better at hiding.." His eyes searched Erik for the weapon he undoubtedly carried on his person.

Erik narrowed his eyes at his nemesis. He would never stop chasing this man as long as one of them lived. He hoped that this time, the closest he had been yet, would be the end of things. He would kill this monster and then be done.

But Schmidt pulled out his second most deadly weapon to quickly disarm Erik. The smile widened, and he clucked his tongue.

"Erik," he drew out. "What would your mother think? Her little boy threatening someone's life?" He shook his head in mock disappointment.

"Shut up!" Erik screamed at the top of his lungs. He threw his hands up to his ears and squeezed his eyes shut to block out the rest of the memories the hateful words were unleashing. As he was temporarily incapacitated by his own anguish, Emma quickly disarmed him and knocked him to the floor.

Recovering himself as quickly as possible, Erik ran. To his everlasting shame, he ran away from the past. He had thought that he was constantly pushing forward toward his goal of revenge, but he realized that day that the past was what was standing in his way and holding him hostage.

The problem was that he didn't know how to defeat it.

* * *

_He averted his eyes and swallowed a sob. He wouldn't show even more weakness._

_His hand rose up and forced the eyes to his level again. "No, you will not hide from me again. There is nothing you can show me that will force me away. Nothing."_

_"My past is . . . ugly. Dark. Painful."_

_"Everyone's is. Your past isn't what holds you back. You are."_

* * *

In the shadowy study, Charles changed the subject back to Erik's favorite and consequently his most abhorred.

"What will you do after you dispatch him?" Charles asked. This time he steepled his fingers and leaned forward to place his elbows on his knees, mirroring Erik across the chess board.

Erik suppressed his surprise at the question. "What does it matter?" He reached out and made his next move, then veritably flung himself back into the chair and crossed his arms. His defensive hackles were up.

Charles didn't flinch from the steady gaze he leveled at his friend.

"It matters to me, Erik. Your peace of mind is one of my goals now." Charles was understating his concern to avoid upsetting Erik even more than he already was. Charles wanted to redirect Erik's energy from his destructive path. No good would truly come of his murdering Schmidt.

Charles would save Erik's soul even if Erik himself thought there was nothing left to save. Touching Erik's mind was one of the most exciting exercises Charles had ever engaged in. He was determined not to lose the companionship and kinship they had already established after such a short acquaintance. His other half-

"It's not your burden, Charles," Erik replied in a soft voice, softer than he usually used with anyone. Softer than he had thought his voice could be. _What was Charles saying? Was he one of Charles' causes now? One of his strays?_

The young man from upstate New York drew on all of his considerable charm but vanquished any flippancy from his next statement. "Let me help you, my friend. Let me grow the peace and calm that you need. I can guide you, if you let me." He willed Erik to understand him as he touched his temple with two fingers.

It was enough. Erik stood and paced away from Charles and the light of the fire. He wanted to be in darkness and cold. He needed to be able to think straight-without those limpid eyes boring into him. This whole situation had caught him off-guard. He had not seen Charles coming with this offer.

_No_, he thought. _I cannot let anyone have power over me again. Not even Charles. I would trust him with my life, but not with my will_.

_I will. I decide. No one else._

He remained in the shadows of the room but turned back to face the telepath. Even though he knew that Charles could read his mind, he wanted the situation to be clear between them. He would speak.

"No. I will not grant anyone that power over me. Not even you, Charles." he said in no uncertain terms.

* * *

_"What if we had to register our proclivities here as well?"  
_

_"Surely, it wouldn't come to that."_

_"Why not? If they want to know about your telepathy and my ability to manipulate metal, what else do they hunger to know?"_

_A small sigh. "Humans are curious creatures."_

_"We aren't humans anymore. . . ."_

* * *

Moira sensed a changed between the two most powerful members of the 'mutant' team. They were closer, yet there was more tension. She couldn't put her finger on it exactly, where or when it had begun. But the longer she worked with them, her partner, and the CIA personnel at the mutant installation, the more she noticed the schism among the groups and between individuals.

As a woman in the U.S. government's most powerful investigative branch, she knew what discrimination was about. She had to be twice as good at any job than her male counterparts to be considered half as valuable. She had to live with the little comments and asides about her looks, her clothing, her femininity. She had to be a woman living in a 'man's' world.

Therefore, she was more sensitive to the verbal and other slights directed toward the mutants than male Special Agents could be-especially white male Special Agents. She followed the Civil Rights Movement from personal interest as well as professional assignment. She began to wonder when the Mutant Rights Movement would begin.

But when she tried to broach such subjects with Charles and Erik, they inevitably ended up arguing with each other and forgetting her presence entirely.

"Don't be so naive, Charles," Erik practically shouted at the shorter man.

Charles refused to be intimidated by Erik's posturing. "I'm not, Erik. I'm looking at the broader picture. Mutation does not observe nationality or race. It is a _human_ characteristic. The world will see that."

Erik rolled his eyes and flexed his fists impotently. "What they'll see are people who are different and therefore _dangerous _to the status quo."

"So what are you suggesting? Should we just 'pass' then?" Charles deliberately chose to play Devil's advocate even risking Erik's irrationality.

"No! We shouldn't have to be invisible for them! We are the more advanced men and women," Erik spat out as he had many arguments before.

Charles felt he had Erik in a corner now. "So, we shouldn't reveal ourselves because the world will think we're dangerous, but you don't want to be invisible either? Which is it, Erik? Because I can't see your middle ground."

Erik stood so still for so long that Moira became extremely uncomfortable. What was he doing? What was he thinking, she wondered. When he turned his gaze on her, she shivered involuntarily.

His voice was ice cold when he finally spoke. "Perhaps there is no middle ground. Perhaps we will have to break new ground and get rid of the old growth." His allusion was not lost on either interlocutor.

"Erik, you can't be suggesting-" Charles began.

"I can. And I do," Erik assured him.

Moira drew in a sharp breath and momentarily wondered if maybe her mother was right and she should have married and had children instead of pursuing her career in the CIA. Her future seemed less certain than ever.

* * *

_"If we could, would you want to reproduce with me?"_

_"Absolutely. The more, the merrier. Mutants have a responsibility to go forth and multiply just like humans do."_

_"It's not a contest, dear."_

_"Life is a contest. And we are winning."_

* * *

"Are you sure I can't help?" Charles asked for what felt like the ten thousandth time in the past three hours.

Erik squinted his eyes shut tightly and formulated yet another form of semi-polite reassurance while feeling the vibrations of the jet jarring his very bones.

"Charrrrrrrr-les," he said, dragging out the middle sound. "I am telling you that you cannot help."

"You don't think I could do it, is that it?" Charles replied, unable to resist poking the bear. They sat facing each other on their way to Cuba.

"Yes, Charles. I am not letting you into my mind because as a telepath with a lifetime of experience, you are vastly underqualified." Erik punctuated his sarcasm with a tight grimace and squint of his ice blue eyes.

Charles couldn't help the smile that crossed his face. It was big and genuine.

Erik continued, "Has anyone ever told you you're a pain in the ass?"

Charles eyes flicked to his sister. "Just Raven. Remember, I didn't have any other friends before I met you," Charles volleyed. "That must mean it's true then. If both of my friends say it . . ."

Erik took a moment to weigh whether Charles was kidding him or pouting over something so insignificant. Then he began to wonder why he even cared one way or another.

In some ways, his life was a whole lot more difficult now. Now that he knew some people. Now that he grudgingly liked some people. Before, Erik had himself, and that was all he needed. Now he stopped to wonder about other people's feelings.

Weakness. That's all that is, he thought to himself.

And almost immediately, the opposite thought assailed his mind. _No, we find strength in each other. _He knew the thought wasn't his.

"Quit, Charles," he warned.

Charles unbuckled his restraint and stood up. Taking two steps and leaning over into Erik's face, he put a light hand on Erik's shoulder, steadying himself in the other man's personal space. He spoke softly and directly.

"Think of it this way: you tried to do it alone, but Shaw is still out there trying to incite nuclear war and annihilate humanity. Let's gang up on him and see if we can get a better result, huh?" He poured all of his hope into his eyes.

The moment stretched between them. Erik weighed the options, and Charles tightened the hand a fraction. Before he knew it, Erik's left hand had snaked up between them and slapped playfully at Charles' right cheek.

"It's not cheating?" Erik asked lightly, hiding his true intent in his forced frivolity.

Charles smiled beatifically, and replied, "When you change the rules, you can't cheat."

Erik smiled back at his friend. He was all of a sudden subject to a new set of rules.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3: The Knight

**_The Knight_**

_Moving: Knights move in a very different manner from the other pieces __–__going two squares in one direction, and then one more move at a 90 degree angle, just like the shape of an __"__L__"__._

_Knights are also the only pieces that can move over other pieces._

* * *

Knights of the mutant realm. But Erik and Charles did not belong, or owe allegiance, to the realm in the same ways. Nor did they become knights following the same path.

Knights like he and Erik needed to fight the fight-even if Charles himself saw it less of a physical fight and more an ideological one. It was still a battle, an opposition. Charles didn't have to look any farther than the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. or the class system of the 'Empire' to see examples of people who were treated differently based on trivial differences. Now he knew Erik's experiences as well-nearly first-hand.

Charles' knighthood had followed the path of the rich and powerful. Educated and trained as a matter of course. When he looked around his opulent bedroom in his family mansion, he didn't see himself. He hadn't decorated the room, but that didn't excuse its unnecessary grandeur. Charles' personal items were a small fraction of the items in the room. He wondered why he hadn't ever cleaned out the rest. Inertia probably.

Growing up with money, being white and intelligent, in the West, Charles hadn't known the kinds of prejudice that most other people in the world had encountered at least once in their lives.

When his mutation became public knowledge, he knew that could change drastically.

But he had his knight's armor to protect him. Would other mutants like Raven or Hank feel as strong as he in this brave new world? How could he help them become knights and acquire their armor in such a short time?

Erik had been forced into knighthood by necessity. Schmidt had ensured that. Hardened by the years of torture, yet Erik never quite gave up. He had his rage to mold him into a soldier, to propel him to train, and to engage the enemy. And to fund this quest to knighthood, he sacked any Nazi he came across.

Erik's armor was dented and patched together, but it was strong. Forged over the years, forged over old scars. Created by sheer will-his will to fight.

On their knight's quest to recruit other soldiers, Charles had finally seen Erik loosen a little in his presence. They had come to a mutual agreement to set aside their armor at times. Those times were brief but very important to Charles. He needed to understand Erik's struggle and path.

* * *

_"And this one?"_

_"I can't recall. Why?"_

_"It's deeper than the rest." Then he proceeded to lave said scar until the man beneath him was shivering in ecstasy._

_"Now it has a pleasant connotation that you do remember."_

* * *

"That's a very groovy mutation," Charles intoned _again._

Erik looked at the girl sitting on Charles' other side at the bar. She was forgettably normal and human. Erik didn't know why Charles bothered.

While his recruiting partner continued prattling on about mutation and genetics-_in a bar, _for pity's sake-Erik looked around. It had been a long time since he had let himself do such a normal thing as sit and sip a drink casually in public. It felt almost . . . good?

_Don't let your guard down, Lehnsherr,_ he reminded himself. _That's when you get ambushed_. He took another sip of his ale and tuned back to Charles.

"Well, if you really have to go. Remember I'm only in town for the evening," Charles said, obviously still trying to make time with the blonde. "Pity," he remarked, this time to Erik.

"What is?" Erik inquired, not really caring, but interested in filling the air with noise that wasn't as annoying as the humans. The music, the chatter were all grating on Erik's nerves especially tonight.

"I think I was in there," Charles answered him. "But c'est la vie." He looked at his companion and lifted his ale in a slight salute.

Erik rolled his eyes to the ceiling and said in a controlled voice, "Contrary to your ego's belief, your mutation is not super flirtation. Nor is it irresistibility to the opposite sex, Charles." He trailed off in an amused huff, downing more drink to stop him from continuing to berate his friend.

Charles regarded him thoughtfully as Erik wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and scowled into the glass. The telepath laughed lightly.

"No, no, nothing of the kind, I am well aware," he said. With a flip wave of his hand and a swallow of his drink, he continued, "I think-I think I flirt in bars as almost a reflex anymore. I'm far too tired to entertain anyone this evening."

"Whatever," was the muttered response of his German friend. Erik's whole demeanor was becoming rigid and controlled again. All of a sudden, Erik realized that he was jealous of Charles using charm on anyone but Erik. And that infuriated him further.

Charles, for his part, regretted his choice of words because he had been enjoying the more relaxed camaraderie of their interaction lately. _I shouldn't have dragged him out here and then virtually ignored him_, he thought to himself. _I know that Erik doesn't particularly like humans anyway._

If Charles were honest with himself, he'd rather have stayed at the hotel this evening just the two of them. Relaxed. Prepared for the next day of 'mutant seeking'. But he had sensed that Erik was a little tense after their failed attempt at recruiting today and had thought a drink would be good for him.

Charles even thought Erik might want the companionship of someone other than his constant companion of the past week.

But it seemed that Erik wasn't going to be good company for anyone this evening. Charles believed it was probably due to their lousy day.

"I'm sorry about earlier. I shouldn't have tried to restrain you," he said in a low voice for his companion's ears only. "It's not my place to dictate how you react to people who treat you like that."

Erik grunted an assent to Charles' apology. Said mutant had been particularly resistant to their sales pitch today. Particularly scathingly self-hating and not interested in anyone else who might draw attention to his 'deformity' as he called it. He certainly didn't suffer from a lack of verbosity when it came to his refusal.

Erik had wanted to choke the life out of the little shit for even trying to insult the two of them. Charles had stopped him with his body rather than his mind, even in the heat of the moment respecting Erik's request that he not enter his thoughts uninvited. And Erik had only let Charles stop him because it was Charles. Anyone else would have been flung away in an instant.

Erik didn't like the way he was beginning to make these behavioral choices based on who this Charles Xavier was. True, he knew Charles better than any other person except maybe Schmidt. But Charles was the first person since his parents that he truly trusted.

And as far as Erik was concerned, trust was just the beginning of betrayal. He knew it wasn't a matter of if but when Charles would betray the trust Erik had so grudgingly granted him. And that grieved Erik much more than he wanted to admit.

Unfortunately, Charles knew that the only reason he himself was smiling and carrying on with the women in the bar was because he was trying very hard not to feel the warmth being radiated by the long, lean body next to his. He was becoming quite distracted by his partner.

Trying to deflect the bad mood, Charles began again. "So which of these lovely young ladies do you fancy, my friend?" He made a sweep of the bar which had a surprisingly high ratio of unattached young women to men for a Thursday evening.

Charles supposed that was a function of the neighborhood with a Uni nearby and lots of new office buildings containing newly minted white-collar businesses. Those businesses needed young assistants and secretaries as much as the college needed co-eds.

When Erik looked up and around again, he saw the people whereas before he had just seen the place. There were some attractive young women. But he too was distracted by the tweed-clad man to his left. His gaze ended on Charles' blue eyes. The telepath swallowed swiftly as he was bombarded by Erik's intensity.

Erik shook his head minutely and said, "None for me, thanks. I'm not hungry."

Charles laughed at that pronouncement to cover his slight embarrassment at picking up on Erik's train of thought. He couldn't resist asking, "Has there been anyone special in your life, Erik?"-doing his best to sound nonchalant.

Erik looked at him sharply. _What is Charles getting at? Is he rooting around in my mind? Or is he making another point?_ Charles always seemed to have some sort of angle to his questioning lately. But Erik wasn't able to quickly pinpoint what it was this time.

Cautiously, he replied. "No. Never had time or stayed in one place long enough." _Not that I didn't find release with the occasional stranger_, he added to himself. But he didn't have to discuss that with Charles.

He also didn't have to admit that he had liked it when Charles had pressed his body up against him to keep his temper in check with the other mutant. He suspected that action, as much as or more than Charles' words, had drained away the anger and replaced it with another passionate emotion.

An emotion that Erik knew would never have been aroused by some random person in a bar.

The next words were very hard for Charles to utter, but his devotion to Erik's rehabilitation from single-minded revenge-seeker to peaceful mind pressed him onward. He kept his eyes glued to the bar-top and drew small circles in the condensation formed by his warming glass. Someone needed to convince Erik to keep his armor off for longer periods and live a normal life.

"Perhaps having someone to love would help you focus your energy and sharpen your control," Charles suggested something that Erik wouldn't immediately object to.

He knew Erik disliked that his control over his mutant power wasn't as strong as he would prefer. He also knew that Schmidt had used negative reinforcement to try to induce that control. Charles preferred positive reinforcement even if it meant giving up his own happiness for that of Erik's. He would be happy just to see Erik happy, even if it wasn't with him.

_Love_, thought Erik. _Who would love such a broken man as I? Who could I ever trust-?_That thought brought him up short again.

He didn't _want_ to trust anyone! He didn't want the burden of knowledge that someone could make him feel worse than Schmidt did-worse than the dashed hopes of a boy who knew that his escape from torture would not come swiftly or easily. The torture of betrayal would very likely kill parts of Erik that Schmidt had never touched.

But he knew that he was already lost to this gentle soul next to him. He hadn't admitted it as yet, didn't know if he would, but Erik at least respected Charles enough to acknowledge the impulse within himself. Burying it deep in his consciousness took a lot of effort on his part.

_Did Charles' remarks mean that he has already picked up on my thoughts and feelings?_ he wondered. _If that's the case, then I'm done here._

Erik alit from his bar stool, throwing cash on the bar to cover the drinks. "I'm heading back. Tired."

"I'll come with you," Charles began to offer.

Erik caught the eye of the girl from earlier and motioned to her. She began waving her way through the crowd toward them. "No," he said to Charles. "You should stay and have another go." He raised his eyebrows in the general direction of the young lady. After Charles' questioning gaze had followed the direction, he looked back next to himself to find Erik gone.

When the woman in question tried to strike up another conversation with Charles Xavier, he had lost all of his spark from earlier. She gave up after a short minute. Charles sat with his half-full glass contemplating his mistakes.

* * *

_"Did you really want anything to do with that girl in the bar?"_

_"I'm ashamed to admit, no. I was actually trying to keep myself from jumping you."_

_A snicker sounded from the other side of the hard hotel mattress._

_"Self-control is overrated . . ."_

* * *

On the road, their conversations had evolved from verbal sparring matches to thoughtful dissections of their own and each other's philosophy. Bits and pieces of their past began to paint their portraits for the other: the camps, the mansion, loving parents, rich parents, discovering their gifts. Neither could claim an ideal background. This understanding allowed them to find equal footing.

Equal footing and the chess game began building the trust that Erik didn't want to acknowledge and Charles began to live on to the exclusion of almost every other emotional nutrition. He was drawn to Erik's kind of strength which was so different from his own-born from such a different place.

After the bar, Erik had prepared for bed. He tried valiantly to avoid thinking about Charles' eyes and silly, floppy hair. He tried not to picture them against the white backdrop of a hotel pillowcase. He schooled his motions into the most economical and and efficient as he performed his ablutions before turning in. He was almost head-on-said-pillow when Charles returned to their shared room.

He heard the quiet click of the key in the door and looked up in anticipation despite himself.

Charles walked through the door, looking much more defeated than he had when Erik had left him. "Oh, you're still up," Charles offered.

"Just," Erik replied, hand lamely indicating the turned-back sheets and blankets.

"Right, well, I'll be quick then," Charles said as he collected his shaving kit from his suitcase and disappeared into the steamy bathroom. Erik had had to wash off the emotional turmoil of the bar as much as the sweat of the day.

With Charles safely out of his sight, Erik sat on the side of the bed and looked carefully at Charles' sleeping space for the night. He caught himself wishing that he could join Charles there, curl up next to him, wake up next to him. Shaking his head ruefully, dismissing such fancies, he resorted again to German efficiency of movement, shoved his feet roughly into his own bed, and flopped into the pillow. He forgot to turn away from the other bed.

Charles emerged from the bathroom again, looking freshly scrubbed above the collar anyway. He tossed the kit back into the suitcase and proceeded to disrobe. Charles preferred full pajamas to sleep in while Erik tended to just wear pants. He overheated otherwise.

Charles kept his eyes pointedly on his own business to avoid the alluring sight of the long, lean frame in the bed before him. He continued to prepare for retiring in the low light leaking around the half-closed bathroom door. He had thoughtfully dimmed said light knowing that Erik had already doused all of the lights in the bedroom proper.

Erik closed his own eyes to avoid his acute reaction to seeing all of that white and lightly freckled skin revealed to him. Still, he could hear the rustle of cloth as it let go of its hold on Charles' body.

_Why, why couldn't the CIA afford separate rooms?_ Erik wondered.

A thudding sound had Erik sitting straight up in bed with eyes wide open, surveying the scene for danger or threat. The blankets pooled on Erik's lap, revealing all sorts of angles in the hushed light. Charles paused mid-pant leg to look up from his bent over position.

"Sorry," Charles whispered. "Dropped my shoe rather hard on the floor. Clumsy," he added, trying not to giggle. Erik saw that the shoe had indeed met the floor, dropped precipitously off of Charles' stockinged foot. Charles was halfway undressed and dressed. He had started with his shirt, the pajama top on and buttoned wrong. Now he was removing his trousers and encountering the obstacle of his shoes.

Erik rolled his eyes at the comedic effect but wished that he hadn't reopened them to the sight. Charles was obviously a little drunk, thereby making him even clumsier than usual. Erik felt his mouth go dry as he watched Charles shuck his pants down and slide his boxers to join them in a pile on the hotel carpet. Then he began the reverse fight with his pajama pants onto his feet, not meeting with any more success even with the shoes safely away.

Erik wanted to look away. He wanted to spare Charles and himself the embarrassment. He wanted so many things in that moment. And most of them, he would not, would never, get in his lifetime.

But perhaps he could get one thing. He could get his friend safely into bed. Hopefully before his body took even more notice of Charles' body.

Sighing, he threw back the covers and stalked over to where Charles was still swaying on his feet and frowning at the elusive pant-leg. One more attempt to stab his leg through the material left him wobbling on his remaining leg and then falling gracelessly into Erik's arms.

"Charles," Erik said, slightly exasperated. "How much did you drink after I left?" He carefully maneuvered Charles to the end of the bed to sit.

Charles kept his eyes on the offending night wear and muttered, "More than I should have. Should have stayed and kept me company."

Erik didn't dignify that with a response. Charles looked up at the taller man, through bangs flopped in his eyes. He sighed and let his weight settle a little more into the embrace.

"I like your company," he said quietly, trying not to disturb the moment.

Erik tensed and shifted Charles to sit on his bed. Charles flopped back onto the bed, splaying his hands over his head. His haphazardly buttoned shirt raised up with his arms, exposing him from collar bones to toes.

Erik couldn't help the small intake of oxygen. He felt a little light-headed actually. Words failed him as he was assaulted by so many sensations at once. He stood rooted to the spot, caressing the defenseless body with his sharp eyes.

Charles lifted his head from the bed to look down at Erik. "What're you doing?" he asked in slurred consonants. _And why is it so cold in here_, he wondered.

Erik's eyes snapped to Charles'.

"I'm helping a drunk fool," he barked.

Charles seemed to accept that and resumed his prone position. Erik thought he heard another giggle and Charles' voice mocking him, '_m helping a fool_.

When all of Erik's years of control clamped down on him presently, he reached to help his friend finish dressing. Squatting down and grasping Charles' ankle with his long fingers, Erik stuffed his foot in and pulled the waistband up to Charles' thighs. His breath ruffled the hair on those legs on the journey.

Charles shivered at the sensation.

To go any further with the pajamas would require Charles to stand up or raise his hips off the bed. Either presented difficulties. After deliberating for a solid minute, the quiet snore that Erik heard made up his mind for him. He gently lifted up Charles' thighs, one side and then the other, and slid the waistband up into place, careful not to catch his genitals in the process.

The slight caress of calloused hands across those thighs as Erik pulled the soft cloth over them went unnoticed by the owner of the muscular appendages.

Then Erik dragged Charles' head up to the pillows and threw a blanket over him. Thus, having tucked the professor in, Erik returned to his own bed, sitting on the edge and gripping with his fists.

His brilliant eyes raked across Charles' face and body. _What the hell am I doing?_ he thought to himself. But his mind stopped coherent thought when Charles let out a little whimper from parted lips. Lips that were always so red and lush. Lips that smiled at him in a way he had never seen before. Lips he pictured on his own body in so many places.

His hands released the mattress and scrubbed across his eyes and jaw, banishing the images. _I've already become much too vulnerable around this man. I cannot let him in any further._

Reluctantly, Erik lay back down and turned to the wall.

Tomorrow was another day of Erik's battle.

* * *

Charles knocked on the shabby door on the fifth floor walk-up in Brooklyn. All around the two men, the sounds and smells of apartments overfilled with humanity bombarded them. Charles did his best not to wrinkle his nose at the smells as he fought off a massive headache from the mass of people's minds.

Shaking his head briskly, he rapped on the door smartly. Erik stood next to him and a little behind, watching Charles. _This is how the other 99% lives, rich man,_ he thought ungenerously. Then he felt remorseful for his need to push Charles into a category. To make him into a stereotype the same way wealthy people of Charles' upbringing would have done to Erik and his family.

Erik knew that Charles was genuine. He wanted to help others and wasn't afraid to sacrifice his time, his family fortune, or his own comfort. Erik admired Charles' selflessness despite himself.

When the door didn't immediately open, Charles looked over his shoulder at Erik. His expression asked if he should try again or give up. Erik gestured with his chin toward the door. Charles knocked again, louder and longer.

After a few moments, the chain on the door sounded. Then a lock slid out of the wall. The door cracked open to darkness.

"Hello?" Charles ventured. He leaned toward the door to see the apparition behind it. Erik hung back.

"Who are you?" called a wizened voice from somewhere below Charles' eye line. He adjusted his view and finally saw the face hovering there. She looked to be in her seventies, her wispy hair dancing around her ears like spectral cobwebs. Her bright eyes belied the rasp of her cigarette-colored voice though. There would be no sweet-talking this lady.

Charles responded in his least charming voice, keeping to a forthright tone, "My name is Charles Xavier. I am here to see Rosa Lopez?" He hoped a questioning stance would make it seem less like a man demanding to see this young woman.

The pair of eyes scanned him up and down. Her brows pulled together experimentally. "You cops?" she asked, having spotted Erik loitering behind Charles.

Erik spoke up then. "No, ma'am. We are not here on any type of legal business." He hoped that would cover police as well as bill collectors and truant officers. He peered around Charles to address the woman directly.

"Then what you want?" she asked, her Polish accent heavier this time.

Charles tried again. "Is Rosa here? May we see her?" He kept his distance from the doorway to keep the tiny woman from feeling threatened, holding his hands up in a non-threatening gesture as well.

"No," she replied curtly. But she didn't slam the door shut.

"Can you tell us where she is?" Charles pursued.

"Why?" was the next question.

Charles looked to Erik with a plea in his eyes. Help me here.

Erik stepped in front of Charles and addressed himself to the woman. "We aren't here to harm Rosa. We would like to offer her a job, actually. But we can't discuss it with anyone but her." Erik hoped the lure of lucre would loosen the woman's tongue. He smiled hopefully.

The old woman rolled her eyes and said something in Polish that Erik thought was akin to 'the enemy at the gates." Then she turned to the lee of the door and appeared to be looking at something or someone.

A timid voice said, "It's ok, busia. You can go home. We'll be fine." The heavy accent this time was Hispanic.

With that, the door swung open to allow the old woman to emerge. She shuffled past both men with no backward glance to an apartment three doors down. She opened that door and disappeared inside with a final click.

Charles and Erik couldn't help watching the grandmotherly woman until she was gone. Then their gaze returned to the threshold in front of them to behold a beautiful young woman in her early 20s holding a toddler in her arms. The child was obviously hers sharing her rich dark hair and large golden eyes.

"Rosa?" Erik ventured. She nodded, but didn't respond otherwise.

Charles began again. "My name is Charles Xavier, and this is my colleague Erik Lehnsherr. We'd like to speak to you, if you don't mind." He took a step toward her with his hand held out.

She backed up a step in time with his, fear springing into her eyes. When Charles saw this-and felt it from her mind-he stopped and held his hands up placatingly again. "May we come in?"

Rosa hesitated, clutched her little one to her more tightly, and dropped her eyes to the ragged carpet. She nodded then, quickly. Erik thought she looked like she was about cry as well.

But then he became unsure as she turned her back to them to walk deeper into the living space, the two men made their way quietly in as well and closed the door behind them. They stayed next to the door.

The toddler was deposited into a playpen where he happily started banging on one toy with another. Rosa stayed next to him, between him and the men at her door, her hands on the edges, her head bowed.

"You are here to take me?" she inquired.

Charles was taken aback by the defeat in her voice. "Take you?" he parroted.

She turned on them suddenly, eyes flashing. "Yes, take me. Put me away. Make me work for the military or something," she asserted.

Erik stifled a laugh at the horror on Charles' face.

"Certainly not. No. We aren't here to weaponize you. We aren't even here to press you into service. It's your choice, completely," he explained.

Erik broke in, "We understand that you might have some abilities that other people do not. Like this." And he lifted a toy top off of the floor and deposited it in the boy's playpen.

Her eyes widened slightly at the demonstration. "You can move objects with your mind?" she asked.

"Metal. I can manipulate metal," he corrected. This time, he pulled a spoon out of his jacket and bent it for her. A convenient prop.

"Ah," she responded. "Then you cannot do this." Suddenly, the shabby curtains at the various windows flew off of their rods and wrapped themselves securely and tightly around both of the men's necks. Each made small choking sounds as the fabric squeezed. They clawed helplessly to alleviate the pressure, dropped to their knees helplessly. More objects left their resting places and began swirling around the room in a show of ability.

Both men could feel the power crashing against the thin walls. Erik, however, noted that the child was not reactive in a negative way. If anything, he was enjoying himself, for as long as his attention span allowed.

Rosa studied them as she held them captive. When Charles finally managed to say "please . . . stop . . . " in her mind, she flinched, losing her concentration a little. The restraints loosened a fraction and a shoe flew into Erik's shoulder, eliciting a grunt.

After a full minute of the sounds of them gasping for breath, she relented. Charles was the first to speak again.

"Telekinetic, then," he said, bent over double and coughing. Erik beside him was trying to contain his rage at the attack. Charles put a restraining hand on his arm to aid the containment.

After the initial shock of finding out that she was not the only mutant in the world, Rosa invited the two men to sit at her kitchen table. She served them glasses of water to lubricate their throats. Each tried not to gulp the welcome moisture down.

"I cannot go to Virginia with you," she said matter-of-factly.

Erik had suspected as much from early on.

Charles was bewildered though. "Why not?" he asked.

Rosa gestured to her son. "I have responsibilities here."

"You could bring him along," Charles offered.

Rosa looked at him sharply. "And then what? I work for the CIA, go on missions, put my life in danger? I couldn't risk leaving him an orphan, alone in this world. I understand your priorities for people like us, but he is my priority. Now and always."

"But, Rosa, surely you want to help shape a world where he would be accepted . . ." Charles began but was cut off.

"Of course I do. But won't he be better off with a mother, here in his world, experiencing what he is, helping him learn to live in it, than an absentee person who is off trying to 'save the world'? I will fight for his world, not the rest of it," she said definitively.

Charles lapsed into silence while he digested her words. None of the other mutants they had contacted had had children. Most of them were barely more than children themselves.

Erik placed a hand flat on the table and said, "Then we will be your champions, my lady. For you and for your son." Then he rose from the table and buttoned his jacket, preparing to leave.

Charles followed a beat later, after looking from Erik to Rosa one last time. He thanked her for the water and her time, still not quite sure what had happened.

They left and walked down the five sets of stairs as they had ascended, in silence.

When they reached the car, Charles finally broke. "Wha-why?" was all he could manage.

Erik looked hard at Charles. _Was he really this insulated?_ _Apparently._

"Charles, the women and children will usher in mutant equality in their own way-raising new mutants, protecting them, cherishing them. A mother's unconditional love is the strongest armor there is against prejudice. She believes in what we do, but she is right about staying with her son. When he is a grown man, he can make his own choices," Erik informed him.

Charles shook his head and looked helplessly at his hands in his lap. "She's so powerful. So strong. We are really at a disadvantage without her," he said.

"She knows we exist now. She knows that the government isn't after her-yet. That is enough," Erik replied.

They drove back to the hotel shrouded in more silence as each man mulled over their mission and their motives.

After parking, Erik stopped Charles from leaving his seat with a hand on his chest. Charles turned to him with questions in his eyes.

"You once asked me if I have ever loved anyone," he stated.

"Yes," Charles agreed.

"I should ask you the same question," Erik replied.

Charles offered no response.

"Rosa loves her son more than she loves anything or anyone. That is a kind of selflessness that you and I do not know first-hand-the love of a parent for a child," he concluded.

Charles relaxed back into the seat and contemplated Erik's words. After a time, he nodded to his companion, and they exited the vehicle.

The knights became acquainted with the citizenry that day.

* * *

_"Does this count as selfless?"_

_Strangled curse and yelp._

_"I'll take that as a yes."_

* * *

[1]


	4. Chapter 4: The Bishop

**The Bishop**

_The bishop moves as far on the board as it wants in a single move, but only diagonally. Each player's two bishops start on opposite colors and cover each other's weaknesses better that way. _

_But they must always stay on their own color._

* * *

Charles watched Erik interact with the CIA personnel. He saw the circumspection with which he treated everyone, especially Moira. Charles seemed to step up his flirting with her every time he witnessed Erik treating her like she was beneath him.

Why?

Charles wasn't sure. Perhaps he felt bad for Moira. But then he didn't step up when other men she worked with treated her as a second-class citizen. Just with Erik.

Perhaps he felt that he had to apologize to her for bringing Erik into their endeavor. For bringing him in and practically begging him to stay. But he couldn't not do everything in his power to keep Erik close to him.

One morning at the CIA facility where they were housing the 'mutant recruits,' Erik asked Moira, "What is the CIA's official position on former Nazis?"

She tried to keep the shock from her face. She was starting to get used to Erik trying to shock her. But this touchy subject was very close to his heart, she knew, if he had such an organ.

"Well," she stalled, "I believe the official position is to take them into custody when we uncover them." She hoped that would be enough to placate him.

But it wasn't.

Erik toyed with the knife he had acquired from the agency, levitating it up and down, spinning it, and looping around his own head. It made Moira very nervous.

"And how do you 'uncover' them?" he asked her, never pausing the knife's flight pattern.

Moira studied her folded hands sitting on the desk in front of her. They were alone in an office that was located less than centrally to the facility. Not a lot of foot traffic came this way. Moira had thought it was good place for her to land and collate the information they were collecting about Shaw and the Russians.

But Erik must have followed her. And now he was asking disconcerting questions.

Moira knew that the agency was more interested in Communists than Nazis, one being the bigger threat to the U.S. nowadays. And as much as she sympathized with what Charles had told her (albeit very sparse details) about Erik's experience as an inmate of a camp during World War II, she knew that anything she told him was either going to be if not an outright lie then certainly not what he wanted to hear.

"Erik, I'm sorry. I don't make policy. I follow my directives. But to my knowledge, there are no active agents pursuing former Nazi officers and officials. That doesn't mean there aren't any," she was quick to assure him, reading the thunderclouds forming at his brow. "I am admittedly a very low ranking agent without much knowledge of the whole of the agency's activities." She dropped her eyes to her clenched hands.

Would that be reason enough for him to not stab her with the knife that was currently pointing ominously at her heart?

"Low ranking? And yet you are pursuing the number one threat almost single-handedly?" he inquired, reserved to a fault. Erik sat with his legs crossed, looking for all the world like he was in a gentleman's club, awaiting the dapper butler who would bring him his cigar and brandy to enjoy with his newspaper.

She knew what it looked like. She was chasing Communists and instrumental in tracking Shaw-_now_-but watching the Hellfire Club in Las Vegas had been a really backwater assignment before she discovered the mutants. Her knowledge of Russian and background in undercover work were also factors in her current assignment to this ragtag group of Communist-hunters. She still suspected that her Director thought she was nuts believing Erik and Charles about Shaw at all.

It seemed like she was making headway in the agency, but she knew that it could all fall apart in a split second. They had already threatened to send her back to the 'typing pool' once. Moira tried not to panic in the face of Erik's implacable rage and thirst for vengeance.

Moira tried to formulate something else to say to Erik when she was saved by her white knight.

Charles appeared in the doorway, all charm and smiles as usual, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his trousers. The knife clattered harmlessly to the desktop.

"Erik. Moira," he said by way of greeting, acting as if he had been invited to this tête-à-tête for tea and biscuits.

Moira felt the tension in the air decrease dramatically with Charles' arrival. _Did I call him,_ she wondered. _I was sort of wishing he were here to run interference with Erik_. Erik collected his knife, closed it, and returned it to his pocket. The smile he turned to Charles was friendly, if not entirely joyful.

"Charles," he began. "We were just discussing Moira's career path. Join us." He gestured to the chair next to his.

_Yes, I know_, Charles said to Erik telepathically. _That's why I'm here._

Erik's smile became a little tighter.

"Moira, you are needed in the compound. Something about tutoring the new recruits in some Russian," Charles said nonchalantly.

Moira tried not to look like she was springing up out of her chair, but she was. Barely throwing a 'Thanks, Charles,' over her shoulder, she escaped. And she began breathing regularly again.

For his part, Charles sauntered into the office and took the proffered chair next to Erik. Then he fixed a level gaze on his partner.

"What?" Erik asked in an irritated tone.

"You know what," Charles replied, equally irritated. "Moira is trying to help. She's the one person in the whole CIA who is unequivocally on our side, Erik. Don't grill her like she's a Nazi-sympathizer." Charles adopted Erik's casual demeanor with legs crossed, but his tone brooked no opposition.

Erik's eyes cut quickly away from his friend. Leaning his mouth against his now folded hands, he placed his weight forward on the arms of the chair and his elbows. After a moment, he turned his head back but didn't change his posture.

"They are using us, Charles. I'm just returning the favor," he said. "I will not lose Shaw again."

Charles leaned forward himself to bring his eyes to the same level as Erik's. He searched the gray-green pools while mightily resisting using his telepathic powers.

"You ways are not the only ways, my friend. Try to be more open-minded," he concluded. Then he stood and offered a hand.

Erik took the hand and allowed Charles to help him to his feet. They stood closely, clasping hands, for longer than most would.

Raising his eyebrows, Erik tilted his head toward the desk recently vacated by Moira. "Shall we?" he asked lightly.

A smile crept across Charles' face, as bright as the sunshine streaming in the large windows facing to the east. He looked out through those windows to assess their privacy and determined that they were isolated enough for Erik's proposal.

Sliding his sport coat down off of his shoulders, he replied, "Yes, I believe we shall."

* * *

The night after Rosa had sent them packing, Charles felt acute exhaustion settling into his head. He laid down on the latest motel bed with a hot cloth over his eyes and temples. He tried not to moan.

Erik tried not to pay attention to either the noises or Charles' supine position-fully clothed but sans shoes and socks. Why should his feet be so interesting, he groused to himself.

Erik launched out of the olive green chair and began pacing. The movement made Charles' head start to pound to the rhythm of the footfalls.

Charles lifted an edge of the cloth to peer at his companion. He sighed and dropped it again.

"Erik, please," he said quietly, but the effort still hurt.

Erik stopped mid-stride and planted himself. He resolved to stay there until he thought he could sit back down-which wasn't going to be anytime soon given his agitation.

Nearly two weeks they had been searching out mutants, with only two to show for their efforts. And every time they 'identified' another one, Erik's skin began to crawl more.

Bringing these unspoiled creatures under the government wing was a mistake. He could feel it in his bones. It would bring nothing but heartache and destruction. Why couldn't he get Charles to see that?

He desperately needed to talk to Charles, but he was as desperately trying to adhere to the promise he gave Charles half an hour before to be silent. Finally, he slumped onto the end of Charles' bed hoping the proximity would be enough for now.

After another few minutes of listening to Erik breathe noisily through his nose, Charles sat up, catching the cloth in his hands and then placing it on the side table. He pinched the bridge of his nose and willed away the rest of the pain. Sitting up wasn't helping, so he flopped back into the pillow.

He knew Erik needed to talk. But first, his feet were itchy. He started rubbing them together, trying to strategically angle his short toe nails to maximize the scratch. It wasn't working well.

The movement caught Erik's attention though.

"Why do you take your socks off, Charles?" he asked.

"I've never liked them. They make my feet itchy, as you see," Charles replied from beneath his elbow now folded over his closed eyes. He moved his feet faster.

Erik couldn't help himself. He could see that Charles' technique wasn't getting him very far. He reached out with long fingers and scratched at the top of Charles' right foot.

"Oh, yes, right there," was the immediate response. Charles' other foot settled quiescently onto the bed beside its mate. Charles continued to make rather obscene noises.

Erik scratched idly and switched feet, imagining that both probably itched. Eventually, he began rubbing the red spots his nails had made, wondering if they hurt more than itched now. Rubbing the tops of Charles' feet led his hand to curling said long fingers around the ball of one big toe to settle neatly in Charles' arch.

The sounds he had been making subsided as Charles intently followed the path of those elegant hands. He slowed his breathing purposefully. No need to assume this meant anything other than simple distraction on Erik's part. But it also didn't mean Charles wasn't going to enjoy the contact.

Erik frowned to himself. That wasn't quite the right grip, he thought. He shifted toward Charles, folding a leg up on the bed. Now he reached with both hands, kneading the fleshy parts between the bones of his friend's foot. He even lifted Charles' leg, bent the knee, and pulled the foot to face him so that he could dig his thumbs into the bottom of the foot-where the foot rub would do the most good.

Charles' arms were, by now, down at his sides and gripping the blankets tightly. He had known that he liked his feet rubbed-several girlfriends having volunteered over the years-but those women never had the hand strength that he really wanted. Erik did.

And Erik wasn't sparing that strength. Despite his earlier need to talk, the taller man seemed to have focussed on his new task with the fervor he had had. His thumbs worked the tendons, unknotting muscles in feet and body that Charles didn't know had even knotted-or existed.

His body unfolded and became one with the mattress as Erik switched feet, carefully placing the first one down comfortably on the bed. Charles realized somewhere in the middle of the second foot's man-handling that he was responding in ways other than relaxation. He felt tingling spreading out from his groin now.

Charles tried very hard to suppress the sound that threatened to escape his throat. What would Erik think of him? Becoming aroused by these touches. Longing for more touches.

But Erik was caught up in the thrumming of his own blood through his own ears. He almost couldn't have heard Charles shouting at him. He was touching Charles' feet, but he felt like he was getting under the shorter man's skin. He was completing a connection between them that had begun in the Miami waters.

"You are not alone," Charles had said to him that night. And Erik had known-_known_-it to be true.

His hands stilled. Neither of them said anything.

Then, Erik took hold of Charles' right ankle with his left hand. He kept his eyes on the lower extremities, avoiding the blueness he would drown in. He didn't want Charles to look into his eyes and see his heart. He was sure the man would.

He just wasn't ready for that yet. But perhaps he was ready for a different move.

Using the index finger of his right hand, Erik began sliding Charles' pant leg up. When Charles didn't immediately stop him or even ask what he thought he was doing, Erik continued until he had the pants to Charles' knee.

Leaving the fabric there, his flattened palm retraced down the calf, cupping and massaging the long muscles under the skin. He discovered that Charles' leg hair was very fine and soft, downy even. He closed his eyes to see with his hand.

Charles was awash in sensation. He couldn't decide if his emotions or his body were sending more signals. But he certainly had no intention whatsoever of stopping Erik from what he was doing. And he hoped to God that Erik continued. He watched his friend carefully, gently, ready as ever to offer encouragement and support.

Erik didn't seem to need encouragement, just time.

Afraid to break the spell of the moment, but fleeing the greater fear of never having the opportunity again, Erik whispered, "I believe the time has come for me to make my move."

Before he could though, Charles was on his knees next to Erik. His arms encircled the broad shoulders, bringing their faces close together.

"Yes," Charles whispered back. He settled his groin at Erik's hip, his bent legs straddling thigh and butt, pressing his chest into Erik's elbow. Charles lifted a hand to lightly palm a hollow cheek. Erik's eyes remained closed.

Charles waited for Erik to become more of a participant.

Slitting his gray-green eyes, Erik finally looked into Charles' pools of blue, allowing himself to swim in the depths for seconds on end. Then his eyes flicked to Charles' lips, wet and shining in the low light adjusted to help the headache.

"How's your head," Erik asked softly, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

"Better," Charles answered decisively. His eyes trailed down to watch his hand slide over Erik's neck stubble and under the collar of his turtleneck. One finger teased the sensitive skin there.

Charles gently pulled Erik's face to his own, allowing their lips to brush together. Exhaling together as they realized their purposes simultaneously. Another brush, angled. Then pressure and answering pressure.

Erik tried to suppress the trembling that erupted within him. Questing, pleading, asking so many favors with just one set of flesh on flesh. The press of released desire, trust, and need behind his skin, his eyes, threatened to overwhelm him in its strength and answering urges from Charles.

They explored lips and teeth, gums and tongues, staying in the same position, Erik slightly twisted, Charles alternately cradling shoulders, back, neck, cheek. Erik's hands remained useless after his exploration of Charles' sensitive feet, lying slack in his lap. What could they do? These hands had sought vengeance for so long, hurt so many, did they even know how to be tender?

How could he explore this scenario with Charles without harming him? He broke off the increasingly fervent kiss.

"What's wrong?" Charles asked, breathless.

"I don't-can't hurt . . ." Erik trailed off, gasping for breath as well.

"Erik, look at me," Charles responded.

When the cool eyes met his, Charles released his thoughts and images into Erik's mind. Erik gasped at the complete trust, comfort, and serenity that Charles felt in his physical and intellectual connection with Erik.

Erik had known this to be true, but had to be shown-and probably would have to be shown over and over.

Now he began to move toward Charles, pushing him back onto the bed, their lips locked together again. Charles scrambled up the length of the mattress to give the taller man a comfortable position, both of his hands now clasping the beloved face and head, keeping them close and together.

Erik crawled over Charles and settled half on top of him, pinning him in place. Charles pressed his hips up into Erik to show his complete acquiescence to their respective positions. His rapidly hardening cock shivered at the friction.

When Erik moved down to pluck at the soft skin beneath Charles' ear, the Oxford man asked, "Was there something-uhmf-you needed to say to me?"

Erik stopped his ministrations, pulled his head back, and looked Charles directly in the eye. "What we're doing is wrong, and you know it," he said.

Charles' eyes widened in surprise. "Wha-?" he spluttered, pushing at Erik's shoulders and trying to wriggle out from underneath him. _How could I have thought that Erik wanted this_, he began to berate himself.

Erik clutched Charles to still his movement. "No, no. Not _this_. The recruiting," he clarified. A small smile hovered on his mouth. "_This_ is divinely ordained."

Charles laughed out loud, hearty and laced with relief-relief of thousands of pent up thoughts, ideas, words that wanted to be said. Now, here, this was how he wanted to be able to share himself with Erik. Completely, as it was always intended. They could understand everything about each other now.

He reached up with his lips and caressed Erik's. "We'll discuss it again later," he conceded to Erik's concern for the other mutants. "Right now, I am more interested in your aforementioned _moves_," he teased.

Erik's smile melted into a thin line. He was happy, but he was also entirely serious about his need for Charles. He wouldn't brook any resistance now that he had Charles' tacit permission.

Thus, Erik undressed Charles slowly and reverently, snickering over the sweaters and plain white boxer shorts. Charles accepted the teasing with no hard feelings, knowing that Erik liked these things about him or he wouldn't mention them at all.

When it was Erik's turn to shed his confining clothing, Charles started from the center and moved outward. From abdomen to chest to shoulders and arms, the strength in each part pulsing with masculine purpose. Charles explored each with his hands and his mouth, leaving little marks here and there to catalog his progress. Erik writhed under the attention, enjoying getting lost in the pure joy of Charles' touch.

Bare chests pressed together as they reunited their mouths. Erik sighed into the softness of Charles' lips. This was more than he had dared to hope. There was no one in the universe but the two of them in this moment. And they hadn't had to exchange many words at all. They just knew how to approach the other.

The rest of the night was spent divided between silence filled with meaning and noises of inarticulate need. Both men found what they had been looking for in each other. The other half to fit into their jagged, diagonal edges.

* * *

_"This is . . . "_

_"Yes, isn't it."_

_"I didn't want to imagine that you needed this."_

_"I never imagined that you needed me . . ."_

* * *

"Erik, we are a part of the agency. We shouldn't be spying on our own people, as it were," Charles pleaded his case one more time. And yet here he was, walking stealthily behind Erik, in the dark, as they broke into another office in search of information.

"Then they should be more sharing of their intelligence-if there is such a thing in this body," Erik snorted at his own innuendo. So far he was unimpressed with the gun-toting neanderthals the CIA tended to employ. No finesse as far as he could tell. All blunt instruments.

But Erik knew that blunt instruments had their purpose in the world as well as sharp ones.

The kind of data gathering that the CIA grunts did outweighed Erik's efforts simply in the arena of manpower. Whereas he was one person, their resources were vast. Not that Erik hadn't done very well on his own, but he figured there was no sense in reinventing the wheel. Easier to break into poorly guarded offices.

The locking mechanism moved under his hand and at his command. With a small click, he and Charles entered another nondescript room, complete with blocky desk and uncomfortable chairs. The filing cabinets on the far wall promised better prizes than the last few offices did. Erik set to flipping through files while Charles made himself comfortable, leg slung over the arm of one of the chairs.

"What else do you need to know about the man?" Charles asked.

"Everything. Anything that can help me find him," Erik replied.

"I regret that I'm unable to find his mind for you. That would be most helpful," Charles bemoaned.

Erik paused in his larceny to look directly into those baby-blue eyes. "I know you would if you could. I don't blame you," he assured his friend.

Charles smiled warmly, the expression bleeding up his face from lips to eyes. Erik felt warmth pool in his chest at the sight.

"Still," Charles rejoined with a flap of a hand. Erik had returned to the file, evidently finding something of interest.

"Here," he said and set an open file in Charles' lap. Photos. Photos of Schmidt and his laboratory. Erik swallowed his bile.

Charles sat up in horror at the images before him. _This_ was what Erik went through. Charles began to understand a little more.

He leafed through the images and the written reports of the soldiers who had liberated these facilities. Erik remained motionless next to him in the semi-dark.

When Charles had seen everything, he closed the file and took a deep breath. That was when Erik tossed a second file on top of the first. Charles was afraid to look.

The contents of this one were less horrible and more so. Schmidt had had a family. He had had children before the war. A wife who looked to be happy with him. He had a medical practice, pictures of nurses smiling and patients recovering in hospital beds with Schmidt standing demurely in the background.

He had been a man before he became a monster. And that made him all the uglier now.

Glancing to his side, Charles captured Erik's left hand in his own. Reverently, he turned the hand over to trace the palm with a forefinger.

Drawing the hand to his lips, he kissed the golden skin. He could hear Erik's mind thrumming with agitation. He continued to kiss with the aim of disarming the ticking time bomb standing at his side.

When his lips brushed across six digits tattooed on Erik's inner arm, the taller man flinched.

Charles looked up. "Is this all right?" he asked quietly.

"Why would you want to-?" Erik asked, emotion heavy in his voice.

Charles was mildly startled by this question. Why? How? _Why not? How could I not?_ These digits were as much a part of Erik's psyche as his body. And Charles was enthralled by both.

"I want all of you. I adore all of you," Charles said with the greatest conviction of his life. This was more than his love of genetics and his study of gene mutation. His connection to Erik was the most important thing in his life now.

Erik's eyes dropped, ashamed of his weakness, his past. Charles sensed that much passively, as any intimate would. Reaching up with his other hand to grasp Erik's offending appendage in both of his, he squeezed reassuringly.

"You are worthy, Erik. This-" he gestured at Schmidt's other life, his normal life, "You are worthy of this kind of happiness, this kind of stability." Charles knew what was really bothering Erik about these two contrasting files.

Schmidt might have been made into the monster he was. In which case, there was another creator behind him. Another Frankenstein. Another target for Erik's rage. And even beyond that revelation, there lay the unspoken desires of the German for the things in life some people take for granted and he never could-and never would-have.

His family died with his mother in Schmidt's office. Died with his father in the camps. He had no other-until now. And even this family was unconventional, even excusing the mutant nature of it.

Erik wanted to believe that he was as different from Schmidt as night and day. He did not want to have anything in common with him. Did not want to desire any of the same things. Did not want to agree with his philosophy, his methods, or his goals. Certainly did not want to have the same losses and heartaches, the same scars of manipulation.

Erik didn't want to see Schmidt as a person. Erik wanted to be the hero slaying the monster.

He was Charles' hero already. And he wanted to show Erik this.

Putting aside the files on the desk, Charles rose to his feet. He tucked his arms around Erik's taut torso and held his hero to his beating heart. Erik lowered his head to rest on Charles' forehead. They stayed silent for a long time.

"You are so much better than you think you are. Let me show you how much," Charles finally ventured. He broke the embrace, grasped Erik's hand again, and began tugging him toward the door.

Erik scooped up the files from the desk and followed Charles meekly. But inside, in the darkest corners of his mind, hidden especially from Charles, Erik was plotting again. He reaffirmed his life's purpose of hunting down Schmidt and his associates. For himself. For every person in the file.

When Charles made love to him later, he did not dwell in the dark place. He couldn't in the throes of passion. The light of his affection for Charles and their duality shown brightly through the morass of his tortured thoughts.

And for a time, he was the man that Charles saw.

But afterward, as Erik lay in the darkness, the glow of intimacy already fading from his conscious mind, he knew that he was less like Charles than he was like Schmidt. He admired the plan for mutant supremacy over the world. He didn't care about the loss of human lives. And he, like his enemy, would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. He would not compromise. He would not alter his course.

He and Charles would eventually be on opposite sides of this conflict, and he had to be ready for that day and that choice.


	5. Chapter 5: The Rook

**The Rook**

_The rook moves as far as it wants, forward, backward, and to the sides. The rooks are particularly powerful pieces when they are protecting each other and working together. Rooks participate with the King in 'castling' where the two pieces both move in a single turn._

_The rook was also known as the 'tower' and the 'rector' in times past._

* * *

"How far is this going to go?" Charles asked one evening.

"Why does it matter?" Erik responded, looking at Charles from across the restaurant table. His eyes tried to look like he didn't know to what Charles was referring. He kept his eyelids at half mast to increase his look of disinterest.

Charles couldn't help a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He followed the smile with a tilt of his head, endearingly lowering his own eyes as he spoke again, "I like to think about the future. I'm a 'planner'."

Erik rolled his eyes at the implication.

Silence ensued as both men sipped at their after-dinner drinks. Charles toyed with the spoon brought with his dessert, his eyes brought back to level with Erik's. After another moment, Charles lifted his eyebrows in inquiry again.

Erik lifted his long fingers from the tabletop, and the spoon slid gracefully from Charles' loose grip. Erik lifted the soiled utensil to his mouth, ran his tongue under the convex shape, and savored the taste of chocolate and Charles.

Charles swallowed slowly and rubbed his suddenly sweaty palms on his thighs. He could not remove his eyes from Erik's mouth.

When the German had divested the spoon of every taste but its native metal, he deposited it back on the table atop his own discarded napkin. Then he reached for his martini, raised it to his lips, and said, "It will go as far as advantageous for each of us."

"That sounds like a business deal, Erik," Charles rejoined, not bothering to hide behind his glass. "Is this just an 'arrangement' for you? A way to get what you want?"

"What do I want, Charles?" Erik asked, noting that Charles seemed angered by his responses.

"You want to win, Erik. You want to play the game, but only if you feel you can always win," Charles ventured. He felt his chest tighten at the statement. Was it true? Is that all this was to Erik. _Let him deny it, _he thought.

Erik mused silently. _Again with the mind games, Charles? _He forced himself to smile even though he knew his smile was never particularly reassuring to anyone.

Eventually, he said, "Yes. I win. But in this game, you do too."

Charles let out a rushed breath. He knew that he was asking so much more of Erik than he ever had before. But he was willing to give as much as he asked. He would leave it all-Westchester, Raven, the CIA-for Erik. If Erik asked. If Erik needed him.

Erik tried not to feel the way he did about Charles. He tried not to daydream about a time in their future-not _his_ future, _theirs_-where they found an equilibrium outside the bedroom as well as inside. He really did need to stop playing games with Charles. He needed to stop trying to win everything before he lost it all.

But-there was always the 'but' in the back of his mind. But what of their passion for mutantkind which burned almost as brightly as their passion for each other? Erik knew that Charles was a stubborn as he. He also knew that Charles' need to be loved and accepted was as ingrained as Erik's need to assert himself and control. And these qualities seemed impossible to shed until they shed their clothing.

_Not that that was such a high price to pay_, Erik thought.

_Why is it so hard for us to discuss our emotions_, Charles wondered. We discuss world politics, ethics, religion, social mores-but when it comes to the personal, we shy away. Except physically . . .

Erik wondered about the sexual arena being their chosen venue for surrender as well. Perhaps it sprung from the very nature of surrendering to a homosexual liaison in the first place. It was as unacceptable as telepathic and magno-kinetic powers. It had never been something that Erik had hated in himself. But he wondered if Charles had.

"Charles," Erik began as he replaced his martini squarely on the table in front of him. His hand stroked the elegant stem of the glassware. "Have there been others? Before me?" His eyes met Charles' on the word 'others'.

Charles frowned slightly, confused. He thought Erik was changing the subject.

"Others? Of course. I've known Raven for over a decade . . ." Charles trailed off as Erik slowly shook his head. "Oh," he offered quietly. He rearranged himself in his chair to sit more upright.

Cutting his eyes to the carpet, he answered, "No. No one. Not like this. Not like _you_." Charles tried to keep the desperation out of his voice. He felt very vulnerable in this conversation. He was admitting to much more than Erik was.

But could he get Erik to admit anything? The possibility of failure there fed Charles' anger again.

His teasing tone from earlier masked his fear of Erik being less committed to this relationship than he was. Determination flaring with his rise of ire, Charles turned the tables. "But I was asking about the future, not the past. Is there any 'advantage' for us?" He met Erik's eyes with steel in his own.

The ball was in Erik's court now. Time to address it before it bounced away from him. "Yes, and I was speaking of winning. _Both _of us winning. And both of us losing as well sometimes. Compromise, I believe it's called."

Charles waited politely for more.

Erik continued, "Compromise is an advantage for both of us. Without it, we will just tear each other apart, I'm afraid."

Charles snorted. "You aren't afraid of any such thing," he retorted and sipped his drink for something to do while he composed his rioting emotions.

"I am afraid of more than you know, Charles," Erik replied tersely, letting some of his fears trickle to the surface of his conscious mind and projecting them toward the man on the other side of the table. He would convince Charles of his commitment to their shared future.

When the impressions of care and intimacy flooded into Charles from his dinner companion, he relaxed measurably. He _was_ more to Erik than a diversion or a means to an end. There was intense emotion beyond his usual state of anger and determination. Charles almost labeled it to himself but needed to hear it directly from Erik's lips to believe in it completely.

And Charles was smart enough to realize that he couldn't be the first one to say such things out loud. It wasn't a competition; he wasn't competing. It was a matter of survival. Charles needed to believe that he could have what people like his parents never did. He just couldn't allow himself to believe that what he felt wasn't going to be returned in equal fervor.

Finishing his drink, Charles signaled to the waiter for the bill. Throwing down adequate cash, he said, "Shall we?" to Erik and rose swiftly but gracefully from his chair. He was determined not to look Erik in the eyes until they were out of public. He didn't want to unleash what he feared would break free when he did look.

Erik berated himself for his need for verbal sparring. He knew that Charles was feeling vulnerable-but he was too, damn it! This sort of thing was way out of his normal operation procedures. Charles was not supposed to happened to someone like Erik. He didn't deserve him, had never earned the right to someone so pure and hopeful. If anything, Erik was tainting Charles and reserving his own special corner of Hell in the process.

Not with the sex of course. But everything else.

Erik followed Charles to the CIA-issued Chevy and slid behind the wheel. They had long ago established that Erik liked to drive but Charles did not. Even from the restaurant to the hotel two blocks away. This was what they did, how they did it.

Silence chilled even the cold night air between them. Erik stole quick glances at Charles' countenance, but the other man kept his face turned firmly away. The lights outside the car windows blurred as they passed. Erik thought at one point that he saw Charles swipe at a tear, but then thought the better of it. More likely he was swiping those curls from over his eyes.

When the Chevy too went silent in the parking lot, Charles reached for the door latch. But Erik's hand on his arm stopped his motion in transit.

"Charles," Erik said slowly and in a low tone. "I want you by my side always. No one else will ever do for me. It has to be you. I love you."

Charles' eyes widened in complete surprise.

"And that's what scares me most," Erik added. His hands dropped ineffectually into his lap. "All of a sudden, I have too much to lose, and winning isn't as important. You've completely ruined me, Charles."

"I thought that was my line," Charles responded just as quietly, as if too loud a sound would destroy the fragile moment. He reached out and turned the chiseled face toward his, cupping one hollow cheek. The other hand traced Erik's lips and then slipped back behind his neck to put the barest pressure there.

Charles leaned in. Erik leaned in. Just before their foreheads met, Charles whispered, "I love you-more than genetics." Then he kissed Erik hard before the other man could respond.

When they parted, Erik allowed himself a chuckle.

"I win," he said.

* * *

Charles shifted in his bed. He was drawn to Erik's body heat. He was always warm just like Charles was always chilled. He had never thought about his chill before Erik became his lover. The women he had slept with before had always sought out whatever body heat he had. Rare was the woman who radiated-although Charles wondered if that was his own fault and the women he chose. Slender, bony things with very little body fat. He much preferred the muscled strength and warmth of Erik.

This past evening had been spent in Charles' bed, although they alternated now that they had more relative privacy in the mansion. Charles liked the familiarity of his own room and bed, but he luxuriated in the maleness of Erik's smells in his room. Charles had always been a little more feminine. He wasn't sure if that was what Erik liked about him, or if he tolerated it.

"Erik?" Charles asked quietly.

"Mmm," was the muffled response from the pillow next to his. Erik burrowed into the bed clothes, his arms under the pillow, lying on his toned stomach. Charles reached a slightly cold hand over to cup a cheek. Erik only jumped a little and stifled a mild curse in German.

"Sorry, love," Charles apologized. "I was just wondering if you think I'm too feminine. Too soft?"

Erik lifted his head from the pillow, his hair mussed from lovemaking and from sleeping. He blinked his eyes a few times to clear them. Then he furrowed his brow as he looked at Charles and considered his question.

Instead of a verbal response, Erik gathered Charles up in his strong arms, nose to nose, chest to chest, cock to rapidly hardening cock. He ground his hips into Charles, eliciting a growl that was very unlike a dressed, conservative Charles Xavier.

"Doesn't feel soft to me," Erik drawled with a evil grin. "You are all man where it counts. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here." He finished with a hard kiss to Charles' bright red lips. Erik worked those lips with his own and his teeth until he felt the need to ravage other bits of skin on his lovers' neck and collar bones.

Between bites and nuzzles, Erik proceeded to extoll Charles' virile virtues:

"Have you forgotten that you jumped me?"

"Who is it that has to have it in public at least once a week?"

"Besides, when did you start equating femaleness with softness and then jump to weakness? I should tell Raven on you. I think she'd have a few choice things to say about that."

Charles had the grace to blush at the last comment. "Yes, I guess that was stupid of me. Forgive me?"

Erik bit his thigh in response. Charles sighed in contentment.

"I was just thinking that some of my habits seem more feminine than yours. Perhaps that's a function of growing up pampered though. It's not feminine so much as just spoiled and frivolous," Charles concluded. He was thoroughly enjoying Erik's attentions now.

"Ah," Erik responded, although Charles was fairly certain that his mouth was occupied elsewhere. "So it's a matter of insecurity about your physical self then? Your paleness, your inability to fight, your homosexuality?" Erik was back to smiling his evil smile by the end of his statement. He loved goading Charles, especially in bed.

Charles took the bait. He sat up and pushed Erik over onto his back, straddling his hips to pin him (somewhat).

"Is that how it's to be then?" Charles asked. He grasped Erik's wrists and pressed his weight on them into the bed just at Erik's neck line.

"You know I love it when you're angry," Erik responded, his eyes twinkling. "You _are_ strong, Charles. My knight in shining armor. Saving me from myself in the dark waters." Erik's eyes were as dark with lust as the water that night they met. When they had first felt each other.

Charles paused. He hovered over Erik's naked body with his own. He looked down at the long lines of the man he had come to know intimately. He caressed the soft and the rough skin with his eyes. Did Erik really think he was strong? He had never said before.

When his gaze returned to Erik's eyes, he felt trapped. Trapped by desire and acceptance. Would he ever have found such a thing with any other partner? Charles doubted it. Whether they were arguing or cuddling, their fit was always just right. Especially in bed.

"Can you not feel how this room vibrates when we are in here together?" Erik asked him.

* * *

"Listen to reason, Erik," Charles tried not to shout.

"No! There is no reason! No reason at all," Erik shouted back.

They faced off as they always did-from opposite sides of a vast, complicated issue. Mutant rights. Mutant lives. Erik would never bend in his staunch belief of mutant superiority, and Charles would never bend from his hope and faith in all of humanity.

Raven interjected this time-tired of hearing them bicker like an old married couple.

"Listen, both of you! I'm fed up with this crap. Can't you just agree to disagree and let it go?" she asked. Standing between the two of them with her hands on her hips, she swung her head side to side to see each man in turn. The men in question only had eyes for each other.

Charles finally looked at her. "That's not a very productive exercise, is it?" he asked.

Raven frowned. "Productive?"

Erik answered her. "Yes, how are we going to get anywhere with this problem if we just go on with different plans?"

Charles turned from his sister back to his partner. "It's perfectly acceptable ask people to bear witness. To share in this with us."

Erik rolled his eyes skyward and held them there for a few seconds. Then he clenched them shut, and muttered, "We don't need anyone else. Especially humans."

Raven narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Are we talking about the same thing? You are arguing about whether we should help the CIA in Cuba, right?" she asked.

Charles and Erik both started slightly. Erik looked at her blankly as only he could do. Charles began his halting, coughing, Brit routine. "Well," he began, then cleared his throat. "Um, yes?"

The question in his answer raised even more of Raven's suspicions. She knew the two of them were up to something covert. She just hadn't put her finger on it yet. They had been different ever since returning from their 'recruiting tour'. Sometimes they seemed more at odds than ever. But then they would agree on something innocuous and surprise her.

Raven's tone was cautionary, "Charrrr-les?"

He looked like a jackrabbit getting ready to bolt. "Yes, Raven?" he asked and then dropped his eyes as if she just caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.

"What are you not telling me?" she asked haughtily. "What happened on your trip to make you two so different?" She knew that she could get further with Charles given their history and his sense of fair play where she was concerned. Erik was a conundrum Raven had been unable to crack as of yet. But it was one of her top priorities because of the speed at which he seemed to replace her as Charles' best friend and confidante.

But Charles just blushed and studied his Oxfords. She turned to look at Erik and was surprised to find an almost predatory grin on his face. Scrunching up her nose, she asked petulantly, "What?"

Finally, Erik took pity on them both. "Raven. Your brother and I are involved," he said with great discretion. Charles' eyes opened wide in shock.

She resumed her challenging stance with fists on hips, rolled her eyes as only teenagers can, and spat out, "Duh! I am talking about you two and what's going on between you. Why wouldn't you be _involved_?"

Now Charles spoke up. "Involved as in 'a couple.' he clarified. Quickly he added, "Please, Raven, be discreet as we are still discussing-"

The squeal that left the girl's throat was anything but discreet. But luckily, they were alone behind closed doors and the CIA had thoughtfully insulated well. Raven threw her arms into the air and fell onto Charles, talking a mile a minute.

"OhmygodI'msohappyforyouboth! Ihadnoideawhenwhereit'ssogroovy!" she went on and on. Charles managed to disentangle himself after a few dicey moments. When it was Erik's turn for the hugging and jumping and ear-splitting squealing at high-decibel levels, he surprised Charles by enduring stoically. He could have rebuffed her, but Charles suspected that her relationship as his sister ingratiated her with him.

"I can't wait to tell Hank!" she exclaimed next, prompting both men to reach out and grab an arm on each side of her body to restrain her.

"Raven," Charles said, "You can't. That's what we're arguing about. I want to tell everyone, but Erik isn't ready." His eyes sought out his partner's to check the veracity of that statement. The truth was that he didn't know if Erik would ever be ready to share that side of himself with anyone but Charles. He was very surprised that it had been Erik to tell Raven.

_Perhaps he's easing into the idea_, Charles thought. And the thought warmed him. _He does listen to me._

Erik was scowling at Raven. He shouldn't have followed that impulse. He could have reassured her that, yes, they were arguing about Cuba and humans and the CIA. What had happened to him that he was airing his personal business to anyone?

The answer, of course, was Charles. Charles had happened.

But that didn't mean that Erik was happy about this additional development. True, he could reason that Raven was probably the most likely person to figure it out on her own anyway. She knew Charles probably better than Erik did at this point. But she didn't know him, and he liked it that way.

Erik was a private person.

However, it seemed that the warm little glow in his chest that flared brighter when he was physically near Charles and when he could feel Charles in his mind wanted to be more public. It wanted to _share_.

Erik harrumped in disgust at himself, at Raven and Charles, and especially at love. _I'm in some deep shit now_, he acknowledged. He released Raven's arm.

"I have things to do, Charles," he announced. He would leave the two of them to hash out whatever details she could drag out of her brother. He didn't have to witness this.

"All right, Erik," Charles replied. "I will see you for dinner." He watched Erik walk away and tried not to stare. It was a losing battle.

Raven cuffed him affectionately on the shoulder. "Way to go, big bro. He's scary, but he's scary hot too." She grinned from ear-to-ear.

Charles turned to her incredulously. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

Raven huffed once more. "Please. Don't treat me like I'm a child. I'd jump him myself if-"

"Don't!" Charles interjected. "Finish that statement. And go to your room!" He pointed in the general direction of her bedroom.

She just pecked him on the cheek and flounced off in the direction opposite to her bedroom. Charles sighed and thought about power and little sisters.

_All the power in the world would not stop her from thinking she knows better than I do._

* * *

_"You know what they say. 'What happens in Vegas. . . .'" Charles began._

_"Is investigated by the CIA?" Erik finished for him._

_"Touch__é__."_

_They both laughed heartily._

* * *

"I can't leave him," Charles said to Moira as he rose and ran off after Erik. _What am I going to do_, he wondered. _What is he going to do?_

Charles followed Erik toward the mansion in which Emma Frost and the Russian General had disappeared, helping and mind-wiping soldiers along the way. When he caught up to Erik, the taller man had not yet found his quarry. They burst through the final door of the hallway together.

Emma sat nibbling on the settee. The General was enmeshed in a fantasy she projected to him. After Charles dispatched the Russian, and Erik rushed Emma as she tried to escape.

_Silly girl,_ Erik thought. _You can't escape from both of us_.

Charles' thoughts ran more along the line of _How does she put up such strong shields? It's fascinating._ But he reprimanded himself for being enamored of their quarry's skills. Skills, he reminded himself, that she has used at great length and with great success against us.

"Now what?" Charles asked, looking to Erik who had lead this charge.

In answer, the metal of the bed's footboard began to move, creaking and curling around her limbs. Charles suppressed a shudder of arousal at Erik's display of control over this other powerful mutant. _Clearly, I am drawn to power_, he thought.

As he watched Erik manipulate his element, Charles slipped into his mind just barely to understand what the metal felt like to Erik. The pull, the calling of it. The desire to interact with it. Charles closed his eyes and carelessly opened himself up to the sensations further.

Erik could feel him now, but he let Charles feel for a bit longer.

They both knew that they were at the breaking point for Emma just before they reached it. And the knowledge that they had to the power to break her was very attractive to both of them, although Charles drew back first. He flushed when he realized that he had been a party to her torture. He had let Erik sweep him up in the moment.

And he liked it.

"Erik, that's enough," he intoned. After Erik cracked her shell and she reverted to her non-crystalline form, Charles pulled the vision of Shaw's brave new world from her mind. As appalled as Charles was by the destruction and genocide, he was reluctant to share what he had learned with Erik.

What would Erik say? Charles knew that Erik wanted to champion mutant superiority over humans as well as Shaw did. But would he go this far? Would he incite world war? Would he become a leader like Hitler, extolling the virtues of pure bloodlines and an Eden-like paradise in which to live?

Would Erik round up the humans and put them in camps? Number them like animals? Slaughter them as such?

Charles looked at his companion, drinking a beer the General had abandoned for the favors of Ms. Frost. Charles heart lay heavy in his chest at these revelations. But were they? Did he not know that Erik felt this way? Had they not spoken of such things together many times?

Was Charles being naive and turning away from truths he already knew in order to preserve his own position in Erik's life?

_When did I succumb to this need to keep him by my side?_ he wondered.

As Charles worked Emma's mind for Shaw's plans, Erik studied him. The partaking of Erik's gifts through his mind was a new wrinkle in their intimacy. Not that he didn't like sharing that part of him. He certainly did like sharing it with Charles. Charles made him feel strong too.

Shaw had always tried to share Erik's power in the camps. He couldn't quite manage it though, and Erik knew that that had frustrated the man. He had his own power, of course, but he wanted Erik's as well. He wanted Erik to become his tool, his weapon. But Erik had always fought him-his will and stubbornness even stronger than his affinity for metal.

But Charles? He wanted Erik by his side, not at his whim. And a large part of Erik wanted the same thing. But he could not give up everything-yet. He had to have his revenge on Shaw. He had to avenge his mother. And he would never give up wanting rights and privileges for mutants. It didn't used to be in his nature to compromise at all.

Had Charles changed that as well? Compromising his personal life; compromising his philosophy; compromising his defenses. All because he was falling in love with the man.

These thoughts were particularly goading to Erik. He let it goad him into walking over to Charles and planting a particularly possessive kiss on him. When he pulled back, Charles' eyes were wide with astonishment.

Then Charles chuckled and asked, "What was that for?" He slipped his hands into his pockets and rocked on his feet, somewhat discomfited with the display in front of Emma.

Erik grinned back. "I just felt like it. Needed to assure myself that you were here and safe. Besides, you invaded my personal space," he reminded Charles with an index finger to his temple.

"Ah, true," Charles acquiesced, abashed by his own impulsive behavior. "I guess I took liberties, didn't I?" He leaned forward and placed a more sedate kiss on the taller man's lips.

"Guys?" Emma began, becoming impatient to know what they were going to do and do with her.

Erik turned a snarl on Emma Frost that actually made her cringe slightly. He cracked more than her crystalline form apparently.

When Charles too turned to face her, she knew she was looking at two mutants who were as powerful as any she had ever met. And the intimacy she read from them showed her how each one's power was magnified by the other. They were a formidable pair of opponents for Shaw.

Perhaps he would be able to defeat them if he could separate them.

* * *

"Camouflage? Is that what it is?" Erik asked.

Erik's body language screamed challenge. _Have we not gone past this_, wondered Charles. _Must we rehash? _He watched all of Erik's typical bluster and indignation and knew it for what it was. Erik's hard outer shell that he presented to the rest of the world was beginning to show its cracks the longer Charles had time to observe him. His conviction was strong, but Erik might be just 'human' enough to release his zealotry.

Charles turned to stare into the fire of the mansion library as he thought about their conversation. Mutation. Adaptation. Birth defects. Genetic manipulation. His areas of expertise and interest. Had he ever questioned why certain traits had begun appearing? Or had he just been interested in exploring them?

Charles respected Erik's passion and conviction, but that didn't mean that he didn't think he was misguided. Erik was all socio-political in his view of mutantkind. Charles was the scientist, the geneticist. He saw it from the microscope and the petrie dish. He saw the infinitesimally tiny bits of RNA and DNA that coded these new patterns. He saw the variation and the selection.

Erik said mutants were the better men. The more evolved. The next step. But were they?

Charles sighed. "Most natural mutation is a mistake, Erik. It's random chance. Something _goes wrong_, and the genome is changed." He fervently hoped that the exasperation in his voice would make Erik listen to him.

Charles needed Erik to realize that he wasn't born with some innate destiny to destroy human beings. _Cultivate empathy, dear one,_ Charles sent to Erik. _Compassion. Be the liberator instead of the jailer._

Charles didn't even feel like he needed his telepathy to see into Erik's mind. He just peered through those eyes which were the most expressive Charles had ever seen. How everyone didn't see right through them into Erik's soul was beyond the young professor. But then no one else got to see Erik the way Charles did.

And if Charles had his way, no one else ever would.

Despite all this closeness, this intimacy, still Erik wanted to keep up this pointless opposition-the boundary testing. He wanted to sharpen his fangs, or something. It tired Charles to know that this trait was not waning in his friend.

When Erik failed to respond to his mental pleas, Charles tried again. "If no living creature is capable of consciously changing their genes at will, then it's not a plan or a design, Erik. When the mutation becomes beneficial and selected for in breeding, it's about survival, not domination." Survival, or perpetuation of the species, _was _inherently competitive, Charles had to concede. But the kind of competition Erik was pursuing was much more akin to ethnic cleansing than natural selection.

"Survival requires domination," Erik responded. "The subjugate weakens and gives way."

Charles shook his head vehemently. "No, that's not the kind of survival I mean. Mutations are selected to help the species_ as a whole survive_, not to wipe out part while actively promoting another. In some cases, it might work out that way, but what you are talking about isn't natural or genetic. You are talking about racism and genocide!"

Erik snorted in derision. He would not be side-tracked with loaded words like those. He knew about racism and genocide from the inside. Charles couldn't lecture him on those.

Sometimes Erik thought that Charles was the most naive person he had ever met. And part of him was drawn to protect that naivety, drawn to the simplicity of believing in the goodness of other beings-the black and white of gene A turned on and gene B turned off. He wanted to grow Charles' brand of goodness in the minds of every other living creature he had ever met. But he knew that was as impossible as changing one's genetics consciously.

Erik had no doubts in his mind that humans were going to react badly after their intervention in Cuba, no matter what Charles said or hoped. Human beings essentially feared change. Charles would never convince him otherwise with his science and his reasoned responses to unreasonable questions. Mutants will be perceived as a threat, and _that _was pure and simple as well.

No amount of hoping would change reality. As a scientist, Charles should know that better than anyone.

Before Erik could start in again, Charles cut him off with "Your parents weren't mutants, were they? Neither were mine. So we are the mistakes. Different mistakes, different outcomes." Charles turned back to the science to focus Erik on anything other than his own point of view.

From Charles' perspective, as quickly as these traits had arisen, they could disappear again. If they weren't disposed to pass to progeny, then mutation would continue to be random and uncontrollable. And so-called 'mutantkind' would never be a stable entity unto itself. The increments between baseline and mutation were too large. The variation too varied.

Erik seemed to actually be chewing on Charles' words this time. He clearly did not like Charles using the word 'mistakes' in reference to themselves. He frowned and drew his eyebrows together. He shifted in his chair and glanced at the chessboard. Then he seemed to make a decision and straightened himself once again. He looked Charles directly in the eye.

"I see what you're saying, Charles-" he began.

But Charles knew that Erik wasn't agreeing with him at all. He was placating him. They were setting up boundaries that might become impenetrable if they weren't careful. Charles felt that Erik was drifting farther and farther from him the past few days. They were arguing more and making up less. It worried Charles a great deal-more than the substance of the arguments themselves did.

"No, Erik, you don't. You say we are advanced, more evolved. What if the opposite is true? What if we are genetic throw-backs? What if we are demonstrating traits that human beings long ago selected _against_? Perhaps we are the cave men and they the astronauts," Charles reasoned. He leaned forward, willing Erik to concede at least one point. "It would explain how a mutation is so powerful in its first generation."

Charles turned to the little table next to him on which he had set his drink next to his notebook. He always kept his notebook handy for recording ideas that needed recording. And this was one of them. He must look at the genome to discover if this theory had any evidence at all.

As he scribbled, he was keenly aware of Erik watching him. Erik didn't like to be interrupted when he was speaking. Charles knew this. But he needed Erik to be focused on what he was trying to say. And anger focused Erik.

"So," Erik ventured, and Charles replaced his pen in the spiral of the notebook before turning back to face his lover. "You are saying that it isn't our birthright to become the dominant form of reproductive life on the planet?" He used his most earnest tone.

"No, it isn't."

Erik seemed to accept this assessment for the time-being. He moved his rook on the board and put Charles into check, out of which Charles moved just as quickly and deftly.

"Then what is our birthright?" Erik asked pointedly.

Charles looked puzzled. Erik moved another piece on the board before looking up innocently.

"Well? Why are we here, Charles?" he prompted.

Charles shrugged. "Why are any of us here? That's a question for a philosopher or a priest, not a scientist." Charles hated these games of 'I'll ask you a question that I myself want to answer'.

"I'll tell you why," Erik rejoined, and Charles inwardly cringed. "We are here to-"

Charles rose swiftly and placed his soft fingers a cross Erik's lips to still him. They gazed at each other for a long moment. Then Charles brought his body closer, skirting around the playing board, and sat astride Erik's thighs. Erik sat back from Charles, creating as much space as possible with someone sitting on his lap. _Interrupted again_, he muttered in his mind.

To which Charles replied, _I am here to be your other half._ _Is that not enough for you?_ Charles slipped his fingers under Erik's armpits and rubbed Erik's pecs with his thumbs. He kept his face carefully neutral, searching Erik's for his reaction. _And I consider myself lucky to have that. I can't imagine wanting more._

Charles dropped his eyes to Erik's lips. Lifting one hand back to them, he feathered a touch across, the line thinned now as Erik pressed them ever so slightly together.

_Charles, _Erik replied. Charles removed the fingers.

"Charles," Erik repeated. "I am not speaking of us. I am not questioning our purpose. And you are enough." Erik spoke as he rarely did-softly and with great feeling, as opposed to strongly and with great feeling. He raised his hands to Charles' shoulders, giving a quick squeeze and then sliding up to the cheekbones he had set himself to memorizing every morning since the first one when they awoke in each other's arms.

Erik took his time looking over all the contours of Charles' beloved face. He traced the lines furrowing the brow overtop the blue eyes of his dreams. Would those dreams include the two of them living together, hiding their true two-fold nature? Two 'normal' human 'friends'? Erik abhorred the furtiveness of it. He would not be ashamed of who he was.

_I am not asking you to be ashamed,_ Charles said. _I am asking you to choose us over everyone else. Fight for just the two of us. Fight for our life together._

Erik sighed and continued to touch Charles' face and head. He ran his long fingers through the think mane of hair. He cupped the back of his lover's neck. Then he pulled Charles into a soft kiss that lingered.

When their lips finally separated, Erik pulled their foreheads together. With his eyes closed, he said, "I will always fight for us. You will always be more important." He opened his eyes to stare deeply into Charles'. The truth of Erik's statement bored into the professor's mind.

He couldn't help but smile. He felt closer to Erik than he had in weeks. Even if they still disagreed. Even if they still argued. At least they could end up in each other's arms with declarations of devotion.

And _that_ was definitely enough.

* * *

_"When we were in Russia, and you fooled that officer who was inspecting the truck . . . ?"_

_"Yes?"_

_"I wanted you so badly, right then. Why couldn't you have made just the two of us invisible for a while?"_


	6. Chapter 6: The Queen

**The Queen**

_The queen is the most powerful piece. She can move in any one straight direction - forward, backward, sideways, or diagonally - as far as possible as long as she does not move through any of her own pieces. And, like with all pieces, if the queen captures an opponent's piece, her move is over._

* * *

When Charles entered the lab, he felt like a kid in a candy store. Oxford had been fairly well-equipped, to be sure, but nothing could compare to the U.S. government's outfitting of Hank's several different laboratories. Charles felt himself begin to salivate just a little.

Smiling to himself, he set about to create his own workstation where Hank had very generously provided him space. Electron microscope, pipettes, centrifuge-all the equipment he could dream of commanding as he pursued his genetic research.

He could leap entirely out of theory into practice here. He was almost giddy with the possibilities.

That first full day in the lab, Charles had spent mostly bustling around and thinking to himself about his next steps. But the second day was for talking to Hank. His mind was so amazingly akin to Charles' own. So inquisitive and flexible in its thinking.

"But that was where animal husbandry figured into things for Darwin," Charles said. "He saw how the expression of traits could be manipulated by the careful application of selective breeding."

"Yes," replied Hank. "But he never used the term 'genes' or 'genetics' because he didn't have the equipment to investigate such things. Aren't we lucky, Professor Xavier?"

Charles smiled benevolently. He was really only a few years older than Hank. "Call me Charles, Hank. I already asked you that."

Hank blushed and looked down at his hands which wrung nervously. When he looked back up through his lowered lashes, Charles had his head hung to the side trying to look into his downcast eyes with a friendly expression.

"Yes," he started haltingly. "Charles." He smiled to punctuate the name and raised his head all the way. "Anyway," he continued as he pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. "With this new equipment, I think that it might be possible someday to actually write down the genetic code of a human being. Map it, as I like to say."

"Imagine what we'll learn then," Charles agreed with his colleague looking around the lab like a dog looking at an unguarded butcher shop. He slapped a friendly hand onto Hank's broad shoulder and shook it gently. Hank smiled again.

"Prof-I mean, Charles? Can I ask you a question?" Hank asked timidly.

Charles removed his hand, placed it nonchalantly back into his pocket and smiled again. "Of course Hank. You have more questions about Oxford?" Hank had expressed an interest in the campus, the curriculum, and the co-eds of Charles' alma mater. He had especially been interested in Raven's experiences while living there with Charles.

Charles didn't have to be telepathic to figure out that Hank was probing for ex-boyfriends. But this time, Hank shook his head to Charles' own inquiry.

"It's about, um, Mr. Lehnsherr," he asked quietly as he busied his hands tidying the already tidy workspace.

Charles frowned ever so slightly. This was a new turn of events. Since Charles and Erik had arrived at the CIA installation two nights before, Hank had mostly kept out of Erik's way. Charles knew that partly it was because Hank was much more interested in Raven and in himself, both he and Hank being genetic scientists. But he also suspected there was some tension there between Erik's heavy-handed approach to other people and Hank's sensitivity to bullying. Charles didn't worry that Hank couldn't take care of himself both physically and psychologically. But he had hoped that the two of them would just continue to stay out of each other's way.

"Yes, Hank, what did you want to ask?" Charles prompted. Better to get this out in the open and over with, in his opinion.

"What did he mean, 'I know what it's like to be a lab rat'? What does he know?" Hank asked without an ounce of hesitation in his voice this time-scientific curiosity winning out over bashfulness.

Charles cleared his throat. He did not have Erik's permission to tell anyone about his abusive background. And he knew enough about Erik to know that it would never be granted. It was important to Charles to keep Erik as a part of their little ragtag group for as long as he could. After Charles convinced him to stay with the CIA and then team with him to find other mutants with Cerebro, Charles knew that Erik's interest in remaining was only tenuous at best.

Unfortunately, along with his instant connection and subsequent longing to be near Erik came the very concrete realization that Erik would put no one and no one's agenda before himself and his own. And that chagrined Charles more than he wanted to admit. For two solid days, he had racked his brain (and several others' truth be told) trying to find a way to incentivize Erik to stick with the group. He had to convince Erik that the group's intentions were also his.

He simply didn't want to lose his friend. Which surprised Charles. Why did he have such a strong desire to hold onto this person he had just met? Why put him above his chance to partner with the U.S. government to research mutation and help mutants the world over? Was that not Charles' dream? And here he was on the precipice of realizing that dream, after all his years of hard work, and he was distracted on the threshold by a man who didn't really want to have anything to do with that dream. It was Erik's nightmare. Identification, registration, experimentation. That was the natural and inevitable progression in Erik's mind.

But was it really inevitable? Was humankind so primitive and so entrenched in its own superiority at the same time that there was no room for an emerging group from its own ranks?

True, biological differentiation had always been an Achilles heel for humans. A different skin color, a different physique-these were often things to be ridiculed and shunned. But the one thing that mutants seemed to have going for them was that there wasn't just one ethnicity or nationality showing their emersion. They crossed all the borders. It was Charles' most darkly held hope that this would unite humanity like a drawstring pulls the folds of fabric tightly together.

Erik seemed to think that humans would instead practice 'artificial selection' and suppress all of the wondrous mutation that was being expressed. Round people up in a witch hunt. Charles physically shook his head to expel the images that conjured.

_No_, he chastised himself. _You must think better of your fellows. You know better of many people. Look at the people you have met in the CIA. Moira, for one. She understands the importance of acceptance and tolerance_.

But a nagging voice reminded him too that she was nearly sacked for bringing Charles and Raven into the CIA.

Charles realized that Hank was looking at him quizzically. "Yes, well, I think what Erik meant. . . You see, Hank, not all of us grew up in the U.S. Not all of us have had the same advantages . . ." he trailed off ineffectually with a vague hand gesture in addition to having said almost nothing of consequence.

Hank nodded vigorously, realizing that he wasn't going to get anything resembling an answer out of Charles. He was amazed at how quickly lines of loyalty were being drawn. He had hoped that his position at the installation as well as his background of genetic research which paralleled Charles' own would make them colleagues and equals, but it seemed that Professor Xavier had other ideas about who was his equal.

Hank tried not to be too disappointed.

At least, he hoped, there was Raven. She seemed interested in being his friend.

* * *

The first time Raven confronted Erik, it wasn't in his bed. And she was definitely not trying to seduce him.

After Erik had interrupted her attempt to kiss Hank, Raven had caught up to him 'strolling' around the jet hangar, invading their privacy. Hank had fled as soon as he had her blood sample, embarrassed to have been caught in an intimate moment.

Raven came around him swiftly, planting herself in his path. "What's your problem, Lehnsherr?" she demanded.

Erik was actually caught off guard, not expecting the young girl to take him to task for anything. He was impressed by her gall.

"What?" he asked, completely innocuously, not giving away any guilt for anything he might or might not have done. His eyes projected nothing but then narrowed. He knew that he looked very intimidating when he glared.

Surprised that he didn't dismiss her out-of-hand, she hesitated a moment before remembering what she wanted to yell at him about. Following his lead, she narrowed her eyes and flashed them gold for good measure.

Inhaling slowly, she regrouped. "What's your problem with Hank? He didn't do anything to you." She punctuated her accusation with a finger to his bony sternum.

He watched her finger touch him with a mix of amusement and irritation. For a moment, both feelings warred for supremacy. But Raven's lack of real threat to him kept him on this side of humor, something approaching a smile gracing his lean visage.

"I didn't say that he did. What did he do to you, dear?" he asked condescendingly.

Raven scowled and scoffed, but it was unconvincing.

Erik couldn't resist pressing the wound. "Nothing, yet? I'm sure he'll get around to something that doesn't involve your DNA. Unless you are looking to 'combine DNA' in ways other than in a test tube?" Now he leered at her, and she shrank away from his body and his innuendo.

Charles came in the door behind Erik. As soon as Raven saw him, she felt more bold again. Her brother would back her up. They might have their disagreements sometimes, but no one had yet come between them in almost twenty years.

A slow smile crept across her face. "Well, I think you should stop being a bully to Hank. He's a genius like Charles-" she checked her brother to see the surprise on his face. Raven had always taken for granted that Charles was bright, but she shied away from praising him for it, feeling inadequate herself. "And you should respect that," she finished with another poke to the middle of his chest.

Then she stepped back and folded her arms across her chest.

In his hubris, Erik had been enjoying his ribbing of Raven so much that he missed the whisper of Charles entering the dark chamber housing Hank's jet model. It didn't hurt that all of the metal in the facility was pleasantly distracting most of the time as well.

"Hank is nothing like Charles," he sneered. "I have nothing against the kid, but what Charles can do-who he is-is phenomenal. You can't compare the two of them-"

"Erik," Charles spoke softly, trying not to spook the man.

The man in question still flinched at that soft sound. He swung around to face Charles, blushing hotly and looking around for a quick escape. But the siblings had him boxed in for the moment. His fists flexed and his jaw clenched. He said nothing.

Charles continued, "We need Hank. His work has far outstripped my own in practical application. I have, I fear, been too steeped in theory," Charles reasoned. He stood with his hands deep in his pockets, rocking on his feet, nervously assessing the roiling emotions emanating from Erik. He kept his eye contact indirect as well.

Erik relented visibly. He crossed his arms across his chest. "Whatever," he allowed, giving it as unstudied an air as possible. It wasn't like he planned to stick around with these people-mutants or not-anyway. He was still surprised that he let Charles talk him into accompanying them into a CIA installation in the first place.

Just another item on his list of unlikely occurrences in the past twenty-four hours, beginning with his tentative trust of Charles in the warm Miami waters and ending with his acquiescence to Charles' request that he stop harassing young Hank.

Erik's posture remained alert, but he felt himself relax a little. He imagined everything in the room, metal and not, leaned with him toward the bright presence of Charles. He was a vortex of conflicting urges for Erik. He wanted to stay with Charles, but at the same time, all of his survival instincts were screaming at him to get as far away from this amateur group as he could.

Amateurs got professionals killed.

Erik let out a sound that was halfway between a snarl and an overly dramatic sigh as the other two continued to eye him, one fondly and one warily. "Fine!" he spat out. "I didn't ask to be brought here, you know, Xavier. I was doing just fine on my own!"

Erik seethed with self-directed anger, but he vocalized it outward. Charles could sense the dichotomy, hence he cut the taller man some slack.

"I know you didn't. And I appreciate you being here, coming here with us. We both do, don't we, Raven?" Charles gave her a suggestive look that said, agree with me or else. She nodded vigorously, standing her ground but closing in on herself again.

Charles held out a conciliatory hand toward Erik, palm toward the magnetic man. Erik looked like a big cat, a cheetah poised to sprint away. He was long and lean, strong and capable. But at the same time, he knew when to cut his losses and run. Charles didn't want to give him any more incentive to go than he already had. There was something about Erik that Charles needed to be around longer . . .

Charles lowered his voice even farther and said, "We are all important. Hank, Raven, you and I. We must stick together now that we've found each other. There is strength in our growing numbers, my friend." The peaceful offering of his hand lowered back down to his side, and Charles turned his body sideways to indicate that Erik was free to pass by him and out of the hangar.

Erik hesitated a moment. Charles had called him 'my friend.' No one had ever called Erik that before. It bothered him, and it calmed him. It bothered him that it calmed him.

Mustering up a good parting huff, he swept past Charles, throwing back the thought, _Don't think that what I said about you meant anything, Xavier. I don't need any of you._

Charles looked at his feet and smiled to himself. He replied, _Never, Erik. I would never presume that you do._ Charles felt a little melancholy in that last thought. He would never presume, but he could hope.

* * *

Erik's labored breathing filled the dark corners of the anonymous motel room on the unnamed highway in some forgotten state. He and Charles had been traveling non-stop for days on end, and Erik had long since given up caring if they were able to 'recruit' other mutants or not. For him, just the fact that they were making contact with their brethren and letting them know they were no longer alone was enough purpose for the excursions.

Erik was now living for the nights, not the days. The stolen nights away from everyone else when he and Charles could pretend that no one else in the world existed. They alone stood firmly on the earth with no obstacles between them except their own skin. And even that wasn't enough to contain them when Charles linked them together mind to mind.

Charles had done just that in the middle of their lovemaking; his mind was just now starting to recede away from Erik's, leaving with a caress as soft as eyelashes on a cheek. Erik reached out and grasped Charles' hand in his own. They fit perfectly, as every other part of them did. Erik raised their hands to study them in the dim light from the bedside table.

His hands were bigger, broader, and had longer fingers. But they were the hands of a working man. Charles had soft hands, also strong, but not scarred and rough. Erik was astonished the first time he took Charles' cock in his hand to hear Charles admit he had imagined the act so many times. Why would Charles be interested in these rough appendages that had inflicted as much pain as they had absorbed over the years? Erik had almost been ashamed to touch Charles' soft skin in the first place.

But Charles had _fantasized_ about it. It still took Erik's breath away to think about this man desiring Erik's calloused hands. The only redeeming feature he had ever found with them was the focus for his mutation. Using his hands and arms to gather metal to him was always immensely gratifying, even when he had to do it under duress in the camps.

But now, he wasn't sure that he didn't prefer using his hands on Charles to using them even for commanding metal.

Erik moved the clasped pair to his chest so that Charles could feel his racing heartbeat.

Charles had turned toward Erik when Erik had taken his hand up. His blue eyes slid across the acres of Erik's naked skin, drinking in his visage as well as the movement of his respiration. Then he peppered Erik's nearest shoulder with sucking, wet kisses, sliding his other arm up under his own head and pillow. His top leg bent at the knee and hooked across Erik's leg with the dual purpose of keeping up their immediate contact and propping Charles up on his side to continue his attentions to Erik's collar bone.

"You are magnificent," Charles said in a low, husky voice between kisses. Erik shivered at the tone and the sentiment. "So sensual. I have never known . . ." Charles lost his train of thought in the memory of said sensuality, Erik writhing and bearing down. Charles couldn't help the whimpers that had escaped watching Erik find ecstasy atop him.

Charles suspected he could die a perfectly content being in those moments and regret nothing.

When Charles began to speak, Erik had closed his eyes. Intimacy with Charles was still painfully overwhelming. Not the physical so much as the emotional-although the two were so intertwined between them like nothing either man had ever known before. Charles was always effusive after sex; Erik just liked to soak up the closeness. But neither man minded the opposite inclination of the other. They accommodated both.

Charles squeezed Erik tenderly as he rambled on. "I always wondered how it would be with a partner who could know about my telepathy. Not so that I could use it, but so that I could talk about it-what I hate about it as much as how I appreciate the gift it is. The confusion when I was an adolescent was so awful, love. I wish we had known each other when we were young . . ." Charles paused to take a breath.

Erik snuggled his nose closer to Charles' earlobe in the interim, humming softly to himself. The vibrations soothed Charles, he knew. They helped drown out any stray bits of thought that might be invading their space from the surrounding rooms. They always tried to get a room on a corner at the very top of the structure in order to avoid being completely surrounded by other life. But that wasn't always possible. Tonight they had only partially succeeded with a top floor room in the center of the building.

The pressure of Erik's touch on Charles' body caused him to respond quickly. _Always,_ he thought, _I always respond to you, my love_. He rubbed his growing erection on Erik's thigh, hearing a soft chuckle as a reply.

"Already?" Erik asked with laughter in his voice as he nipped at the lobe. Charles let out a playful yelp when the even teeth caught onto the soft skin. He quickly rolled on top of Erik and spread the long arms above them on the pillows.

Charles smiled down at his lover, his eyes trailing down the Roman nose, so straight and majestic. He couldn't resist bunting his own nose against the fleshy tip and then stealing a quick kiss from the lips below.

Lifting his head back up, he replied, "You forget-or have lost track of time. I've been working on you for a good twenty minutes." The smile that followed up that statement was positively wicked.

Erik had the presence of mind to blush as he realized that Charles had been stringing his arousal along, building it up and then knocking it down a bit, only to build it up again stronger. When he finally allowed Erik to come, it was tantamount to an explosion of pent-up pleasure. Erik believed that Charles' masterful command of foreplay made the anticipation every bit as good as the culmination.

Charles enjoyed anticipating as well. Dropping his legs between those of the man below him, Charles wrapped a foot around Erik's calf and rubbed his own calf up and down the longer leg. This also served to rub his groin against Erik's. Long, slow strokes up and down, up and down. Charles studied Erik's expressions as he enjoyed his own movements.

Erik kept his eyes open now. He didn't want to miss anything either. They alternated between eye contact and roving over fine hairs and skin creases. Eyebrows and lashes, the shell of an ear, the cove of a throat-all of those oft-explored places that were now replete with memories of want, desire, and realized passions. Each man could feel the heat of the other's gaze, and it warmed more than just the skin.

The strength of their connection sometimes still took each by surprise.

Hands now joined the expedition. Charles ran his fingers through the fine strands of Erik's hair, pulling it forward over his forehead and then moving it back again. "I cannot get enough of you," he confessed to Erik.

The smile that had been softly settled onto Erik's lips faded to the seriousness of thin lips. "There is not enough time left in the universe for me to spend with you," he replied and punctuated it with a long, deep, unhurried kiss.

Releasing each other with a soft pop, their breath again ratcheted up, Charles cupped Erik's jaw and cheeks, resting his forearms on the bed. He had stopped his grinding during their kiss, feeling that it was almost crass to interrupt such an emotional moment by humping like a teenager. He remained still in body and mind as he drank in the man whose face was most dear to him.

"But you will leave, eventually, won't you?" Charles asked quietly, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall onto the cupped cheeks.

"Don't think about it, Charles," Erik tried to reassure him. They both knew it was true. But that didn't mean this moment had to be spoiled with the thought or words about it.

The truth they both wanted to deny and delay was that there was only one thing that could tear them apart-themselves. Their own stubbornness and ideals. Their own philosophies born out of their backgrounds and experiences. They were their own worst enemy-even more so than other mutants, more than humans, more than nature itself. Their power bound them together, but it would also be their undoing.

After their declarations of love and fidelity, they had both indulged in the merry fantasy of a future together. Two men living together would be strange enough, but two mutant men? Two mutant leaders? Two mutants with such power? The CIA wouldn't be the only agency they'd have to battle if they were perceived as a threat.

And how would two gay mutants be perceived as anything but a threat in 1960s America? They threatened humans, heterosexuals, families, governments, regimes, associations, coalitions, and probably also the laws of physics.

Nevermind trying to run a school. For children.

Charles was willing to forgive the shortcomings of humans in so many cases. Erik was not. But the other consideration was the trouble and pain that Charles would have to endure on Erik's behalf. Was it more unthinkable for Erik to bring Charles pain by being with him or by not being with him?

Erik shoved these thoughts aside to come back to the moment. He could feel that these reflections were dampening Charles' ardor. This, he mused, was counterproductive in several ways. So he slid his hands down and over the soft curves of Charles' ass to remind them that they were naked and alone.

Charles took the hint, wiping away the stray tears and smiling. "Ah, yes," he whispered.

Stirring the fire again was a task of few seconds. Their lust was not something that was ever truly doused. It was banked, it was channeled, and it was protected. But it was not ever sated. How could it be when they only had the length of one lifetime to express it?

* * *

Charles made his way quickly down the broad expanse of stairs in his childhood home. His excitement stemmed from two things: his anticipation of tomorrow's clash with the Russians in Cuba and his anticipation of this evening's imminent pleasures. He forced himself to calm down and walk at a normal pace. _First things first,_ he thought. _I have been saving that bottle for something just like this._

Rounding the corner into the kitchen, Charles flipped on one light. The large, industrial refrigerator stood its lonely sentry in the enormous room. Charles tugged open the cold pack side and ran his eyes over the contents. _Now where did I?_ he mused. _Aha!_

His eyes landed on the dark green glass of the champagne bottle. Now this was the proper way to celebrate their introduction into the world. A coming out party, if you will. Hello, humans, we are here to save you from yourselves. _Hmm_, he thought briefly, _maybe we are the better men_. But then all of this misunderstanding and conflict has been orchestrated by Shaw, so it's not exactly the humans' fault.

At least the CIA is on top of things.

Turning with his quarry in his hands, his eyes landed on his sister. Raven stood-naked for all intents and purposes-in the doorway to the kitchen. He started and dropped his eyes. He really did think of her as a sister. It was indecent to look on her like that without some sort of clothing covering her, even if she was blue.

Raven began talking-or babbling, as Charles regarded it in his head-about pets growing up and the world being against her. He wanted to be attentive. He did. But he had a lot going on right then. Cuba. Nuclear war. Mutant anonymity being blown. Erik. Erik's cock. It was a lot to process at the same time. And now she wanted to have a serious conversation with him when his erection was becoming quite uncomfortable and the champagne was becoming too warm.

He was almost too relieved when she walked out on him. He would talk to her tomorrow. They'd have plenty of time on the flight to the Caribbean. It's too bad they weren't going there for vacation like when they were younger. That had been a nice time-just the two of them enjoying the fine weather and the release from any responsibilities. Charles shook his head to clear it. Erik. Right. He had a mission right now.

He took the stairs two at a time back up, not caring now if he seemed eager. He was eager. When he reached Erik's door, he stopped for a moment. He could feel Erik's irritation inside. _Now what?_ he wondered.

He lightly tapped at the door and reached for the knob. It was turned and wrenched away from his hand before he got a proper grip on it. Erik stood in a pool of light from the bedside table, his arms crossed, fully clothed, with the most adorable pout on his mouth. Charles couldn't help smiling at him as he presented the bottle of wine and two flutes he had brought with him.

But his smile soon faded when Erik refused to make eye contact with him. Erik closed the door with a flourish of his hand and turned his back to Charles. Charles set the bottle and glasses down and reached for his lover. He slid his arms around Erik's mid-section and laid his cheek on Erik's spine.

"What's wrong?" he asked quietly, concern lacing his every breath now.

"Raven," Erik replied and felt Charles stiffen a little at the revelation. "She was in my bed when I came up here."

Charles released Erik and walked around to face him. "She what?" he asked, afraid to hear the answer.

Erik heaved a sigh. "It's nothing, Charles. She's just a child. I just gave her a little peck and sent her on her way," he said. _Well, almost nothing. I did drive just another millimeter of space between the two of you._

Erik almost couldn't help himself. He didn't want to hurt Charles. He didn't set out to hurt him with anything that he did; but at the same time, he couldn't stop himself from voicing his mind when it came to mutants. He meant every word he said to Raven. She should be able to be herself. She _was_ beautiful in her true form. And Charles really should acknowledge that about her.

But he knew that it wasn't in Charles to understand Raven's feelings of marginalization. His capacity for empathy was so vast, and yet, he couldn't understand why his own sister would want to be loved for herself. He didn't understand what it was to be the minority, to be on the fringe, to be persecuted for something that was not a fault or a vice. It was just a characteristic. It was who she was. And the world would never be able to accept it.

Charles made Raven feel like he didn't accept her by insisting that she hide.

If Erik didn't love Charles so completely, it was the one thing for which Erik wouldn't be able to forgive him. Anyone else in the world who treated another mutant in that way would be Erik's sworn enemy. But not Charles. He wouldn't be Charles' enemy. He didn't have it in him to actively be Charles' enemy.

But he didn't have to help Charles either.

Charles was relieved to hear that Erik had booted Raven out. He resumed his smile and his grip on Erik's slim waist. Gazing up at the man through thick lashes, he said, "That's all right. Let's get on with our celebration then."

When Erik returned his smile, Charles mistakenly thought that things were just fine between the two of them. He didn't know that Erik had finally made his decision and that that night would be their last together.


	7. Chapter 7: The King, Part 1

**A/N: This chapter was getting so long, and a little stalled, that I decided to break it into two parts and post what was already written.**

**Feedback is greatly appreciated. I will give it a good home. Leave it with me. ;-)**

* * *

**The King**

_The king is the most important piece in the game of chess. When the king is captured, the game is over. But the irony is that the king is one of the weakest pieces of all. He can only move one square in any direction - up, down, to the sides, and diagonally. All of the other pieces have to be willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the king or else they lose the war._

_The king may never move himself into check where he could be captured and defeated._

* * *

Laughter. Bright, full, and genuine. Charles wondered if there was ever a more joyous sound in the history of the world. He savored Erik's eyes tightly closed, his chin thrust out, and his mouth pulled open in a laugh that could save the dreariest souls.

Charles reached out to touch that joy, just a little. His hand landed on Erik's chest between his collar bones. He could feel the air rushing out of the man's lungs with the settling chuckles. Only hours before, he wouldn't have been able to feel such a thing with his hands.

But now.

Now, Erik was here with him in the narrow motel bed. They were naked and pressed against each other as much as possible. They were sweaty and sticky from the sex they had barely paused from all night long. Charles wondered how they had managed to keep their relationship platonic for so long. Now, he wondered how they were going to manage to go out in public ever again.

As Charles basked in Erik's returned gaze, he offered his sweetest smile in return. He was besotted. He was giddy. He was complete. Charles leaned in to claim Erik's lips once more, silencing the laughter completely.

Erik was dizzy. He had never felt this way before. It was more emotion than he had ever experienced beyond rage. As soon as Charles kissed him, he couldn't remember his own name much less his vendetta. He wanted to escape with Charles and start a new life together. He wanted to . . .

As their kiss deepened and heated up, Erik wrapped his long, strong arms around Charles' back. His hands lingered over the muscles he felt moving under Charles' skin as Charles ravaged his mouth like a starving man. _Surely_, Erik thought, _Charles had had many lovers with which to share himself and his time. Why was he acting so desperate_?

Charles released Erik's lips with an audible pop. His brow furrowed just slightly and he tilted his head to one side. He licked his lips, and looked down Erik's face to his mouth, the mouth he had just devoured.

"There have been other lovers, yes, but there has never been anyone with whom I could truly share myself, Erik. No one is like you," Charles said earnestly.

Erik smirked. "Of course not, Charles. I am a singular creation." Having said his snarky piece, he lifted his head up toward Charles to claim another deep, lingering kiss. They proceeded to wrestle on the soiled sheets, each reaching for dominance, each too blissed out to care about getting it.

It was a first for Erik to not care about having the upper hand at all times. It surprised and excited him to have met his match in Charles.

For his part, Charles was excited by the flower-like opening of Erik's demeanor toward him. Less guarded day-by-day, Erik was able to share just a little more of himself with his friend. Last night, the little part he shared was not little at all.

Charles had gasped at his first true sight of Erik's manhood the previous evening. He had not been with a man in a while, and most of those trysts were more drunken than he liked to remember. He had used the alcohol to dampen his telepathy more than his inhibitions. He seemed to be more candid with another man than with women.

Perhaps it was the fact that they were both men. Even after years of living with Raven, women's behavior still befuddled him sometimes, telepathy or not. The female mind was so complicated. But men were much more straightforward-and Charles never saw that as a positive or a negative in comparison to women. It was simply more familiar. It was easier to skim surface thoughts and impressions from male lovers.

Until Erik.

The labyrinths that made up Erik's mind were endlessly honeycombed and subtle. Charles could spend days contemplating one idea of Erik's, how he conceived it, how he deconstructed it, and how he discarded it. But ideas were not what Charles was interested in as he twined his body around the wiry one beneath him.

The size and boldness of Erik's cock teased at Charles' consciousness. Even in the brief periods of sleep that they had caught off and on overnight, Charles was aware of the silk-wrapped steel that fit so well in his hand and mouth. His dreams were laced with its presence and prescience, anticipating his pleasure before he did.

And now Charles could share all of himself with someone. He didn't have to hide his telepathy, but neither did he feel like he needed to use it to understand his lover. This was so refreshing as to be a relief to him.

When Charles had bared himself physically for Erik the night before, Erik had felt humbled. This beautiful man was willing to share himself. He was willing and eager. His skin glistened in the moonlight falling through the half-closed shades of their window. His eyes sparkled, and his mouth was sinfully wet. Wet and dirty.

Part of the equality of the experience formed when Charles wouldn't allow Erik to speak at all during their first penetration. Moan, grunt, cry out-yes. But no words. Nothing to come between them in those moments. But then, once he was firmly ensconced in Erik's body, the most filthy things issued from between the telepath's red lips.

"I have wanted to do this for weeks. Wanted to see you pinioned on my weeping cock."

"You are the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. I could subsist on your semen alone."

"This ass is perfection. You suckle my cock like a hungry bairn. Always so willing to take more."

"I have to see you fall apart again. It's the most exquisite torture for me to hold on until you let go."

And Erik had come over and over from the import of these words, the abandon of them. The truth of them. When he was exhausted and panting from their exertions, he would turn to Charles and fill his mouth full of Charles' equally impressive member. Charles' taste exploded on his tongue, and he could feel himself filling again all too soon.

The next time, Erik would top, and Charles would whimper in ecstasy. They explored more positions than either had wanted before. The night stretched out from their initial contact, whispering to them that there was nothing in the world that would sustain them as this act would. Nothing would unite them as well or as completely.

And nothing would keep them from arguing for as long.

After one of the seemingly endless rounds, they had fallen apart, sweating like marathon runners. And they were running a marathon-going on twelve hours now. That was when the laughter had begun.

Charles had had to make a quick run to the bathroom to empty his bladder, and Erik had rolled to his side and propped himself up on his arm to watch his lover's ass bounce without the impediment of clothing for once.

"Do you exercise, Charles?" he called over the sound of piss hitting water.

"Not really. Not purposely anyway, why?" he asked back. He jiggled himself to get the last drops to drop. Then he reached out to flush the toilet. As he watched his hands, he kept his eyes on Erik's appraising eyes. He raised his eyebrows in query again.

Erik gestured aimlessly in Charles' general direction and smiled. "Well, look at you, love," he offered. Charles glowed at the endearment as much as the physical admiration and appraisal. He had never heard Erik utter so personal, so sweet, and so intimate a phrase. He stood and preened for a moment with his hands on his hips, legs wide and framing his rapidly re-interested penis.

"Oh, please," Erik rejoined, eyes raised to the ceiling briefly. "Now you're going to posture in front of me? After all of last night?" The ludicrous nature of Charles' display struck Erik as the funniest thing he had seen in years. He had fucked Charles within an inch of his life repeatedly, and here the man was trying to look seductive and alluring-covered in Erik's semen and lovebites. He was thoroughly debauched physically and spiritually.

His hair was messy; his mouth swollen from overuse. Erik was intimately acquainted with all the creases and crevices of the man's body, their thresholds for pleasure and pain as well as Charles' preferences for one spot over another. No, there was no mystery left between them in that way, but they had all the mystery of life and the future yet.

And the silly picture that Charles painted along with the realization of the joy of that future bubbled up and out of Erik as Charles had crawled back beside him. Then Charles had basked in the laughter like a lizard in the sun.

Refocusing from those memories of laughter to concentrate again on his hand on Erik's skin, Charles reflected on other memories-memories of urgency. He had wanted to touch that skin ever since he had first felt Erik's presence in the waters. He had reached out in every way he could for days and weeks until Erik had reached back.

And look where that had gotten them.

Charles let out a sigh. "I think I will walk funny for days. Too bad my mutation isn't unnaturally strong muscles that withstand exhaustion." He punctuated his wistfulness with a smile.

Erik picked up the smile as well. "Yes, that is too bad. I would have been much more attracted to you then." He slapped Charles lightly on the rump, eliciting a very unmanly giggle from Charles.

"Well, at least extreme attractiveness is my mutant gift," he teased.

"Yes, we are lucky there, aren't we?" Erik allowed. "It's something we share, I think." Erik looked sideways at Charles, arching his eyebrows in amusement.

"Oh, yes," Charles said in a mock breathy voice. "My strong, handsome hunk of mutant." Charles even batted his eyelashes. They both laughed then.

"Is that even considered a 'mutation'?" Erik asked. Charles was amazed at the other man asking him. He had always seemed so grudgingly, marginally interested in Charles genetic knowledge before. Now, Erik was asking. He sought to understand more of the physiology of himself and his brethren. Charles was thrilled.

"Not technically, no," he said, his blue eyes sparkling as he toyed with the light hairs on Erik's chest and abdomen. "But attraction is as much about reproductive fitness as it is about chemical cues and electrical impulses. It's fascinating how the human body-"

"Human?" Erik asked lightly.

Charles chuckled softly. He knew what Erik was getting at, but he also knew that Erik's relaxed attitude was a gift to him right now. A gift that he was likely to reclaim at any moment. Charles would hold on to it as long as possible.

Turning toward Erik and propping up his head on his bent arm, Charles assumed a thoughtful posture. "You know something I've been thinking about on our trip, with all the mutants we are meeting? Why are the mutations so divergent? Why haven't we met two with the exact same mutation? What does that mean?" His eyes acquired a far-away look to them as the scientific portions of his brain whirred and cogitated on his own questions.

Erik had been wondering vaguely the same thing. Although his line of thought had been more along the lines of how to unite all mutantkind when the only commonality they all had was what they didn't have: they didn't have plain human genes.

"And," Charles continued in Erik's absence of a verbal response. "Why all of this variation now? Is this the next step for humanity, or will we develop branches of the species like Darwin's finches? Islands the size of continents separating groups who adapt and change." Charles' eyes were glowing even brighter with the science talk.

Erik reached up and cupped Charles' cheek. Charles lowered his eyes and nuzzled into the offered hand, turning to kiss the beloved palm. Charles said, "Maybe we will learn how to live together. Maybe this is the dawn of a new era. Look how space exploration is ramping up. Maybe mutants will live on other planets some day." All of Charles' hope and conviction blossomed on his face.

Erik smiled in the face of so much strength and expectation. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe."

They spent the rest of that day in the same bed, only emerging when nature called and to eat something for renewed strength. But the laughter filled in the spaces between their lovemaking, feeling even more intimate than the acts. The ideas flowed, and they felt their common ground grow. Charles suspected for the first time that now he had the foothold in Erik's psyche to affect the change he wanted-to help Erik realize his full potential.

To help all mutants realize their full potential. And humanity too.

Charles was complete.

* * *

Charles tried to keep seeing Erik even after he disappeared through the giant hole in the side of the submarine. He desperately wanted to keep his eyes as well as his mind on his love. He knew that their best strategy was to keep Charles well out of Shaw's physical reach, but he was so unsure about sending Erik in alone.

Erik's thoughts were so fractured. The strain of pulling the sub out of the ocean was incredibly taxing on his mind as well as his body. Charles was impressed by Erik's ability to recoup his strength and run across the beach. The will to force his body to do that bidding was the sharpest part of his thoughts right then.

But as soon as Erik entered the darker innards of the sub with the wailing warning sirens and flashing lights, he was able to let himself feel physically exhausted. Charles felt the shift of his mind back into its normal course-all of the anger, hatred, and pain directed solely at Shaw. Charles shuddered as these emotions slammed into him like a hammer to his temple.

"Charles?" Moira asked and put a hand on his arm. He shook her off. He had no time for anything but concentrating on Erik.

"Quiet," he hissed. She backed off immediately, quite intimidated by the way he sounded so much like Erik in that moment.

"Keep moving toward the center, Erik. That's where he must be," he instructed. Charles retained his conviction in his role-their leader, their chief mentor. He mapped out the path for all of them, being the most centered and controlled of them all. He knew that he had to help Erik find Shaw, had to protect Raven, and had to show the world that mutants were forces for good.

He would do that-all of that.

But then things started to slide out of control-out of Charles' control. By the time Shaw was dead and Erik was directing dozens of missiles toward the navy ships, Charles knew that the situation was no longer his to direct. He had told Erik that they would rewrite the rules to get what they wanted. He didn't realize that Erik would choose different rules from Charles'.

He hadn't really believed that Erik could casually kill hundreds of men, right in front of him and the other young mutants, to prove a point. Up to now, Erik's gestures had been small and pointed. Not grand and sweeping. But this was more than grand; it was grotesque. It was murder on a different scale than one doctor from the concentration camps.

"Erik, please," Charles pleaded, his voice disguising nothing of his desperation. He had to convince the man to stop before he stepped off of a cliff from which he would never return. His Erik. Gone forever.

"Please," Charles repeated. His tears were tracking down his cheeks, writing messages of disbelief all over his skin.

Erik turned to take in his lover's visage. "It has to be this way, Charles," he intoned. "You knew it as well as I did."

Moira felt like she had started reading a novel halfway through. There were things going on here that didn't make sense and for which she had no context. She shook her head as if the motion would clear everything up.

"But Erik, please, I swear I'll try. I'll try harder to understand. It will be better together, won't it?" Charles was almost babbling now, trying to find the magic combination of words and sentiments that would bring his Erik back to him.

But in that moment, epiphany struck the telepath. _His_ Erik wasn't a real person. _His_ Erik was a construct in his head. They had shared a great deal, it's true, but he had never truly swayed Erik from his purposes or his means of achieving them. He had known that the night before, but he had naively buried the knowledge in optimism and hope.

Now, what was good and truly buried was their connection. _Trust is the beginning of betrayal_, Erik had once told him. He hadn't listened.

Charles had fancied himself above petty things like holding grudges and blaming other people for his own mistakes. But he felt a great resentment toward the man standing opposite him on the warm beach. Erik had lied to him. He had never believed in Charles. He had used Charles to get what he wanted.

And Charles had let him lie again and again. _Damn him_, he thought. _What was I holding on to so tightly that the truth was a willing sacrificial lamb_?

Charles knew the answer. Of all his actions, this was the most selfish and self-serving. His most closely held ambition was dependent on false premises. In this situation, he would have done anything to ensure the right outcome for himself. But everything he did only served to seal the opposite fate.

Erik was going to leave him. And he was going to take Raven. And they were going to oppose Charles openly and repeatedly.

They were going to take parts of Charles with them-parts he had willingly gifted to them-and use them against Charles. His love and trust and faith and hope would become his enemies.

Charles could barely breathe with the weight of these revelations.

They had told him. They had both said as much the previous night. But Charles had been so wrapped up in his excitement about aiding the CIA and leading their 'mutant division' into battle against Shaw. He hadn't listened. He hadn't been a good leader after all.

The shots rang out against the metal helmet on Erik's head. He turned to Moira and started deflecting them away. Charles panicked. No one was going to shoot Erik, take him away from Charles.

"No!" he screamed and ran toward them both.

His reaction was to flinch away from the speeding piece of metal that pierced his spine. But it wasn't a pain reaction. There was hardly any pain at all-that should have been the first indicator. Still his reflexes kicked in, and he howled.

When Erik reached him and pulled the slug out, Charles let out a pent up breath. Erik had helped him. He had cared enough to help him. But no. He had sent the bullet flying in his direction. _Erik had essentially shot him_. Shot him in the back.

Just as he was stabbing Charles in the back by luring Raven away and leaving.

To cover the pain he was feeling in his heart and his head, he assured Erik that it was ok for him to leave. He wouldn't do any more begging. He did have his pride after all. He had to be a strong example for the other children-for Hank and Sean and Alex. He forced a smile and watched his future dissolve before his eyes in a puff of black smoke.

Erik. Raven. Both gone. Forever?

Something inside of Charles broke. He felt a physical breaking sensation. The tears streamed down his face even as he was able to clamp down on the wailing he wanted to indulge in. He had never been an overly emotional child, but it seemed that Erik's presence in his life had changed him as much as he had tried to change Erik.

He had introduced strength and joy to Erik; Erik had introduced anger and loss to him.

Moira continued to fuss around him while Hank took the initiative and examined his wound. When Charles informed the small circle that he couldn't feel his legs, he felt their collective mental gasp. Then their pity.

The pity was enough to snap him back into control of his own emotional reactions. They were still stranded on a Cuban beach with a dozen highly -armed vessels willing to destroy them.

"Hank?" Charles asked as he laid a hand on a blue arm to get the boy to look into his eyes. "Can you see if the jet will fly?" Hank looked from Charles to the black carcass and back to Charles again. Giving one brief nod, he stood up and jogged over to his plane.

If anyone could get the thing going again, it was Hank, Charles knew.

In the meantime, Sean and Alex lifted him up and carried him back into the passenger area of the plane. They laid him down across several seats, trying to make him comfortable without knowing how to. Or that there was no way to do so. Charles eventually convinced them to leave him and sit down to recover after their own ordeals.

With the relative privacy of Hank in the cockpit and the other two boys sitting in the sand outside, Charles allowed himself to break down again. He still made no noise, but he felt all of his loss from this day. This day that was supposed to have gone so well and ushered in a new era for diplomatic relations between humans and mutants.

What more could Charles lose?

Moira tried to reach anyone who would be willing to help them get off of Cuba and back into American hands if not onto American soil. Desperation rolled off of her in great shuddering waves.

Charles covered his head with his arms to try to stave off the onslaught of emotions from the four people surrounding him. Sometime between then and when he was vaguely aware that they were in flight, someone had produced a morphine shot from the first aid kit. Charles had tumbled into oblivion willingly.

The next he knew, he was in a sterile hospital bed, surrounded by machines but nothing alive. Turning his head, he took in the sparse furnishings and beeping sounds that mirrored his heartbeat. He still felt no pain in his back and no sensation in his legs. But the aching, burning, searing landscape of his heart was still there and growing. It was that which let him know he was still alive and now awake.

The bleakness was consuming him and invading the spaces in his life that had been recently vacated by loved ones. It was not an advantageous exchange.

* * *

_Hank heard quiet sobbing coming from the direction of Charles' room down the hall from his own in the Xavier family home._

_Making a mental note, he added one more day to the already months of days and nights that had witnessed this emotional turmoil._

_Hank ached to help Charles. But as much as he had felt infatuated with Raven, her betrayal had quenched a great deal of that ardor._

_It seemed that was not the case for Charles with Erik. Hank couldn't decide if he hoped or dreaded loving someone so much._

* * *

"You see here, how the expression of this trait varies between individuals? It's an issue of timing. And the mutation changes that timing," Charles concluded, pointing to the photographs lying on the table between himself, Hank, and Erik. The three of them had been discussing, at length, the manifestation of genetic mutation. But only the past few minutes had the discussion gone from theoretical to practical.

Erik sat back from the table, his arms crossed, distanced from the conversation and the ideas that might try to worm their way into his mind. His wary posture was nothing out of the ordinary.

Charles smiled warmly at Erik and then glanced at Hank. Hank was frowning slightly as he too gazed at Erik. Charles kept the smile and shook his head slightly to tell Hank to ignore Erik's posture and attitude. It was just Erik being Erik. Hank shouldn't take these things personally.

The two scientists turned their attention back to the science.

"So for the male, the timing coincides with adolescence; but the female saw an earlier expression," Hank pointed out. They shuffled through the photos to verify that the physical mutation became more and more disparate as the siblings aged.

"Yes," Charles said as he turned to the projector and dimmed the lights. After a moment, the image focused on two mutants, one considerably larger than the other. Both of them were performing feats in a gym equipped with all types of athletic apparatuses used by gymnasts, boxers, and track and field athletes. As Charles, Erik, and Hank watched in silence, the two young people in the film began to display more and greater athletic prowess.

The girl vaulted without the use of a pole. The boy knocked a punching bag off of its chain with one punch. The two of them ran around the room so quickly that they were blurry.

"See how she outdistances him? How her physical strength is a little more evident in her musculature?" Charles said. Erik stared intently at the moving images. He seemed to be taking more of an interest now.

Hank began, "So her mutation has been active longer which means that her organs have developed a larger capacity for oxygen and pumping her blood, giving her more strength and speed-" He was cut off at that point.

"Who are these children?" Erik asked. "Where did you find them?" The images continued to play and cast shadows across the faces of the three viewers. Erik's posture was rigid.

Charles placed a calming hand on his friend's shoulder and leaned into his personal space. It was the closest Charles had come physically to Erik since letting him loose as they broke the surface of the water on the night they met. He repressed the desire to wrap his arm entirely around Erik.

"Actually," he conceded. "Moira provided the photos and film. I don't know where they are. But I'm sure that they are safe." His reassurance did not work.

Erik looked at Charles with open scorn. "You're sure?" he repeated, scowling and narrowing his eyes. "And just how can you be sure that the CIA is _protecting_ these two? How do you know they aren't training these two to become weapons?"

Before Charles could answer, Hank muttered, "Like you?" The irony was not lost of Charles. Erik was militant himself and perhaps seeking to gather more mutants to his cause. He was certainly doing his level best to get Charles to fight alongside him. However, now was not the time to call Erik on his hypocrisy.

The German turned to the young man in glasses with a snarl. To his credit, Hank didn't flinch in the face of all that rage. Just blinked once. Twice.

"Hank," Charles issued in a low voice. "Could you give us a moment, please?" Charles never took his eyes or his hand off of Erik. The other man was coiled and ready to attack like a threatened mother bear.

After Hank closed the door behind himself, Charles let out the breath he had been holding.

Erik wrenched away from the gentle touch and began pacing. Pointing toward the exit, he shouted, "That _boy_ knows_ nothing_! He's their pawn. He'd do anything they say for his fancy lab and his experimental jet! Charles, you know this." Erik had reclaimed some semblance of control and brought his voice down by the time he spoke Charles' name, sensing that the geneticist would react more favorably to a rational argument.

Charles took his time responding. He too had been concerned when Moira had told him about these children. She had been given the materials after she had brought Charles and Raven into the CIA fold. And she in turn had given them to Charles and Hank. Charles had insisted on bringing Erik into the analysis as well.

"Please calm your mind, my friend," Charles began. He held up a hand to forestall any more diatribes from Erik before Charles had a chance to speak to this situation. "I understand your concern, and I assure you that I share it. I have hired someone to discreetly look into this matter. Finally, I have found a use for my family's wealth." The last was said almost to himself. He had always found his family's money to be an awkward burden.

Now it was Erik's turn to let out a pent-up breath. He was both surprised and relieved to know that Charles wasn't completely indoctrinated to the point where he surrendered his common sense. Children with these abilities were targets. Their mutations might as well have been bright red targets on their foreheads.

"And?" Erik asked impatiently.

"Nothing yet. I was just made aware of the situation yesterday. These things take time . . ." Charles replied, although he knew he didn't have to tell Erik the complexities of tracking people.

Erik slumped a little in release of his tension. "So," he started again after a moment. "Your point about their mutations?" He scrubbed his hands across his eyes and refocused on the photos.

Charles was taken aback by Erik's renewed interest in the earlier conversation. "Yes, my point is that mutation is often a matter of genes 'switching on' at different times and for differing lengths of time. You see here that the sister of this pair apparently began her manifestation earlier in her lifetime-although she is the younger sibling-and experienced a longer period of active expression." He sat back in his chair this time, letting Erik absorb the information on his own time.

Erik studied the photos for a few moments longer. "When did your mutation emerge, Charles?" he asked almost absentmindedly. Although Charles knew a little about Erik's past experiences with his affinity for metal and magnetic fields, Erik knew nothing of Charles'. The whens and hows. He imagined it couldn't be as traumatic as his own forced maturation.

Charles looked like he was cornered for a split second. "Why?" he asked quietly, eyes dropping away.

Erik felt even more justified in his question now. "Well, you speak of these two children in such clinical terms as if they aren't living, breathing creatures. I wondered if you had ever thought of yourself in such terms," Erik explained, slightly menacing the other man. "How long was your 'expression turned on'?"

Charles could taste Erik's disapproval.

"It, um," Charles tried. "It's hard to, uh," he stammered as he rubbed self-consciously at the back of his neck. The tingling there had less to do with science and more to do with hearing Erik use the words 'turned on' in that husky voice of his that demanded attention.

Erik became impatient. "Well?" he prompted and pinned Charles with his accusing gaze.

Charles relented. "I was nine when I first began aware of thoughts and voices that were not my own. Mostly this was because they were adult thoughts that were complicated and didn't make sense to me as a child."

Charles paused. How long had his expression been active? Was it still active now? It was something Charles didn't actually know the answer to. He had not tried to run any testing on himself for fear of the information getting out of his hands and into someone else's-someone dangerous or powerful.

Suddenly, Charles felt flushed with shame. That situation was exactly what these two children had fallen into. They were exposed and vulnerable in a way that Charles had actively avoided himself. How did he miss that? How could he be participating in that dissection of their mutation and gifts too?

And why did it take Erik pointing it out to get him to see it?

Erik could see it on Charles' face the moment the telepath realized his folly and took responsibility for his failure to see it before now. That satisfied Erik for the time being. That and the private detective on the Xavier payroll.

Erik wondered if this information about genetic timing would come in handy for him someday. He tucked it away with the rest of his knowledge of powers, gifts, talents, and whatever else was classified with the 'expression' of genetic traits. Forearmed with knowledge was forewarned.

"If we are going to be canvassing the country looking for others of our kind, then we need to know what the CIA is going to ask of them," Erik pronounced. "If we are going to lead these brothers and sisters, then it's our duty to _not_ lead them into traps." His earnest plea did not fall on deaf ears.

Charles understood Erik's point now more fully. The two of them were taking personal responsibility for the discovery and recruitment of beings whose existence could be manipulated for unknown outcomes. Was Charles ready to bring walking, talking tools and weapons to the CIA?

He made his decision firmly.

"Yes," he replied. "We will protect them."

Part II, TBC


	8. Chapter 7: Part II

**Author's Note**: It has come to my attention that readers see this as the final chapter of this story. Not true! I have another part outlined that still falls within the King piece. However, I won't swear that after that there won't be more. I have to listen to Erik and Charles and figure out what they want. ;)

* * *

Charles wheeled himself into the familiar kitchen fighting all of the memories that the room always opened up. Raven was inextricably tied to this room in Charles' mind. She had loved to eat and to cook, once she was old enough and tall enough to reach the stove. And the large cabinets were perfect for finding a quiet, dark place to hide away.

To hide away and be blue.

Pushing these memories back down, Charles continued on his quest for some tea. Everything was more difficult now that he had to sit at most people's waist level. His shoulders ached from reaching above his head to the sinks, to bookshelves, and to the liquor cabinet. Would his upper body strength ever catch up to its use and stop the incessant muscle cramps, he wondered.

It had been months since Charles had returned from the hospital and convalescent home to his own home. And he had tried not to waste a moment in the establishment of his school for young mutants. Well, no sober moments anyway.

Hanging the kettle from the faucet, Charles moved over to the lower cabinet that now held all of his teas. No need to keep them up and out of anyone's reach anyway. He doubted many of the new students would steal tea. Charles chuckled to himself at the notion.

Hearing the water overflowing the kettle, Charles sighed and rolled back to the sink. He unhooked the kettle, dumped out excess water, and moved to the stove to start heating. The things he used to take for granted-bending over to pick the dish towel off the floor, closing doors without thinking about it, using the toilet effortlessly-crowded into his mind as he looked around at the relative mess of the once pristine room.

_I should really try to find a housekeeper/cook who is a mutant, he thought. Hank's too wrapped up in his projects and the school planning to pay attention to these details._

When the kettle began to whistle, Charles turned himself in a tight circle and froze.

Erik stood imperiously in the same doorway that he and Charles had once defiled in the middle of the night. Charles could still feel the edges of the door trim where his fingers had clung for purchase against Erik's thrusts. Those thrusts had threatened to knock Charles off of his feet at the time. Now, Erik gave no indication whether he remembered the encounter, standing there in that damnable helmet, hiding from Charles in plain sight.

The irony of never being able to keep to his feet again washed over Charles in a wave of anguish.

"Is Raven with you?" Charles asked sharply, compensating for the pain.

"No," Erik replied flatly.

Charles tried not to squirm uncomfortably in his wheelchair under the other man's gaze. It was the first time Erik had seen him like this. Charles was ashamed to admit even to himself that he also felt embarrassed not to be able to stand tall and look Erik directly in the eye (mostly). He felt inadequate. He felt . . . unattractive. And that led him to wonder if Erik thought the same thing about him.

Charles' eyes cut sideways, and his cheeks flushed. Erik observed these events with hawk-like eyes. He had missed little about Charles six months ago when they had first come to the mansion. The German would expend a great deal of energy every day cataloging Charles' facial expressions and muscle movements. He had been so deeply in love . . .

Now, Erik sensed Charles' discomfort. But he was having trouble placing its origin. Was it because Erik had surprised him? Was it because Raven wasn't with him? Was it anger or grief? Keeping his face impassive, he stood in the doorway waiting for Charles to invite him further in or dismiss him outright.

Charles felt deep fatigue creeping into his body as his adrenaline ebbed. He really didn't have the energy for this encounter this late in the evening. He should already be in bed. He should already be resting his weakened body. He sighed and slumped a little in his shoulders, admitting defeat of his pride. He wanted to talk to Erik more than he wanted to punish the man. He turned away from the doorway and moved to finish his tea.

"Want some help?" Erik asked, taking a tentative step into the light.

Charles shot him a dirty look and replied tersely, "No. Thank you."

At that tone, Erik was pretty sure that Charles was pissed at him. And he had to admit that the telepath had every right to be so. Erik had no illusions about the extent to which he could be a prick. Just the same, Charles had always-from the start-managed to look beyond that.

Before Erik had betrayed him most cruelly.

"Is she all right?" Charles voice wafted softly through the interior air punctuated with the smells of countless meals, hastily prepared and cleaned up after. He still refused to look at Erik since the first unexpected glance. Charles sipped his tea.

"Yes," Erik responded. So far, so good. _Two questions asked and answere_d, he thought.

Erik debated with himself for a moment about removing the helmet. He didn't really distrust Charles. But he had wanted the element of surprise to ensure that his old friend didn't prevent him from his visit entirely. Erik admitted that Charles' attitude and reactions tonight weren't all that surprising to him after what he had done-and continued to do.

He decided an olive branch was in order. Reaching up, he slid the helmet gracefully off of his head. Charles stiffened immediately.

Erik placed it on the countertop next to the saucer Charles had abandoned in his quest for distance between the two men. Erik's fingers lightly traced the edge of the fine china, and Charles felt the touch in his mind. He clamped his eyes shut to prevent the tears that sprang immediately to his ducts. That touch, that softness, those fingers . . . he remembered them all too well.

"Stop," he whispered harshly. Erik withdrew his fingers. Charles turned himself around so quickly that his wheelchair went up on one wheel for a moment. But he felt the telltale vibrating of the metal as Erik effortlessly righted him.

"If you're here to talk, let's at least go into the relative privacy of the library," Charles directed. He would be damned if he would let anyone else see how he was in front of his former confidante. Better to hide that side of him in the same way he hid the drinking. Or thought that he did.

On the way to the library, Charles remembered the disheveled state of the room only a moment before snapping on the light. _Too late now_, he thought. He would accept the consequences of his actions. _That's what leaders did, didn't they_?

Good leaders. Good, sober leaders.

Erik took in the bottles strewn across desk, table, bookshelves, and floor. He made no comments, but his posture said everything. He stiffened at the sights. He pulled himself back from the warmth he had been radiating in the kitchen. He was displeased.

Cleaning old newspapers and empty plates from his customary seat, he noted the shabby state of the furniture as if he could read the past six months in the upholstery. Perhaps he could. Stains, dust, crumbs, and smells all clung to the chair suggesting that Charles had sat here more than anywhere else.

Perhaps to feel close to Erik? Or perhaps just to be closest to the liquor cabinet. Erik decided not to choose one or the other.

"How are you getting on?" he asked Charles as he sat with a flourish of his cape and watched the other man wheel himself around the room with surprising ease. _So_, Erik thought, _he has spent a great deal more time in this room, pacing as it were, than in the kitchen._ _And by the look of the room, he's spent that time alone_.

Charles shrugged noncommittally and continued to roll around Erik's stationary chair. Erik waited politely if a little impatiently for Charles to be honest with him. The thoughts were rolling around in Charles' head, just waiting for the correct form before pushing out through his red lips.

The thoughts and the wheelchair halted at the same time, not exactly facing Erik but not turned away either. Charles ran a hand distractedly though his hair. _He needs a cut_, Erik thought. _It's not like Charles to not care for his appearance._

"Sort of pointless now, keeping up appearances, with this thing," Charles said hitting the arm of the wheelchair lightly. His tone sounded ironic, but Erik sensed the bitterness beneath. "I find that I'm less charming now that I cannot look into anyone's eyes directly." He looked at his folded hands that had come to rest in his own lap. Clenching them together tightly, Charles fought against tears.

"Charles," Erik pronounced. "Self-pity isn't like you." He took a more stern attitude to try to lend Charles his own strength. He had talked more than one mutant out of a funk in the past few months in his quest to position himself at the forefront of a mutant organization.

When Erik silently cast about for other words and phrases that he had used-'brotherhood' and 'solidarity' and 'superiority'-he quickly discarded them all. He knew they were hollow platitudes that would only work on lesser minds. Charles was still Charles even if he was drinking a little too much and had lost the use of his legs. He was too bright to be played.

And Erik cared too much for him to try to do so. Instead, he offered a hand to his friend. Charles looked grateful. They caressed each other's hand for a moment, sunk into thoughts of who each of them used to be.

_You are always beautiful and strong in my eyes_, he thought toward Charles.

After a moment, Erik broke the silence again. He really didn't have an unlimited amount of time to spend here.

"And how is the school getting on?" he asked, genuinely interested.

Charles brightened measurably at the question. "Oh, well, actually. We've-Hank and I, and sometimes Sean lends a hand-been working non-stop since I returned-" Charles stopped at the almost-mention of his injury and lengthy recuperation. He didn't want to discuss any of that with Erik. He knew intellectually that it was Erik's fault even if emotionally, he had probably forgiven the man. Probably.

And that was Charles struggle on a daily basis now-his intellect versus his emotions. When the intellect won out, he was a force of nature for his school and his students. When the emotions, he was paralyzed from any productive activity but spun into the alcohol drinking. It was a dizzying high and low from which Charles felt relatively unequipped to same himself. Of course, he knew Erik couldn't do it either.

Charles had lived some hard truths since the last time he had laid eyes on his former lover. Not the truths of paralysis and academy administration, but the truths of the consequences of not considering the viewpoint of others more carefully. Again, he was grateful for his timely erasing of Moira's mind to save them all from more trouble.

Charles felt that he had aged ten years in the past six months. Part of that was advantageous in his estimation. He was less naive. He took less for granted. But the downside was less determination in the face of frustration and obstacles. Too many times, he had said to himself, _what difference will it make_, just before he gave up. He was slipping farther and farther away from the man he used to be. _And he didn't care_.

"It's moving along as expected," Charles finished after pausing and thinking about his spinal injury.

"Good," Erik intoned, sounding wary and unconvinced. He really had hoped that the project would have been good for Charles. New children to teach, new possibilities to explore in his petrie dishes. And new opportunities for him to move on from their admittedly heated relationship. Erik had known in the midst of it that the heat of their arguments, their polar opposite views, and their carnal lust would burn them both badly.

Why hadn't he warned Charles? He didn't know the answer to that question.

Erik thought back over his last six months of struggles and victories. The Brotherhood was moving forward, but Erik felt that something was missing. Sitting here in this closed room, smelling the distinctive combination of alcohol, sweat, and unhappiness, Erik knew that what he had been missing was Charles.

And not just Charles, but Charles' unbridled optimism.

He shook his head minutely at the thought. He never guessed that he would miss Charles' incessant need to look to the bright side of any situation-Shaw's attack on the CIA, Erik's background, Alex's attitude, even the occasional kiss-off they had received from the mutants they had contacted. _Especially that asshole in the bar smoking a cigar. What a self-important prick_, Erik thought.

Sighing heavily, Erik released Charles' hand.

Charles took the cue. "Why are you here, Erik?" he asked folding his hand back into his own lap and angling himself toward the other seated man.

Erik lowered his eyes. "I'm here to let you know that my teleporter was killed. Azazel," he said.

Now, it was Charles' turn to sigh. "I wondered. I had thought there was someone missing in your circle," he returned. He slumped in his chair again, bringing his hand up to rub his thumb and index finger at the bridge of his nose. "Was it an accident?"

Erik hesitated for a split second. "Ultimately. It wasn't supposed to have happened that way-" Erik's tale was cut short by Charles' hand shooting out and gripping Erik's bicep with all of his anger-fueled strength.

"Just what was 'supposed to have happened,' then," he asked through gritted teeth. _Damn him_, Charles thought.

Erik scowled at him. He knew that Charles would react like this, without all of the facts and the imperatives on top of that. Charles wasn't willing to do just whatever it took to meet his goals. Not like Erik.

"He was supposed to infiltrate quickly and depart, as he has dozens of times. But we miscalculated how many times he could do so without arousing suspicion and ultimately countermeasures. He was caught. Before we could get to him, he was turned over to some butchers who killed him performing 'exploratory surgery'. Raven-" Again, he was interrupted by the grip on his arm which began to clamp down impossibly tighter.

"What. About. My. Sister?" Charles ground out.

"She was the one sent in to get him out. Instead, she found him. She was . . . upset," Erik concluded and crossed his legs, measurably more relaxed now that he had said what he had come to say.

With a loud huff, Charles turned away from Erik and rolled. He couldn't stand to look at his friend for a moment. Erik was so imperious in his recitation-no emotional strain at all. How could he be so cold when Charles knew first-hand that he could be so warm?

"But she didn't want to at least talk to me, or come here? I could meet her somewhere else," he offered, not even trying to disguise the desperation from his plea. He hung his head knowing that Raven didn't seek him out for comfort like she did as a child. Even before she had left him bleeding and crippled to follow Erik's crusade, she had been pulling away from him. He had realized it too late to repair the breach.

Erik replied gruffly, "No." He was more affected by the tone of Charles' voice than he liked to admit.

He wouldn't try to curry favor with Charles by telling him how he had gone round and round with Raven to try to convince her to come with him. She had stonewalled him from the first-never wavering even once with so much as a 'maybe' or 'I'll think about it'.

She was starting to live on her anger the way Erik used to. Before Charles. Before he had known he could live on something else. Erik was trying mightily not to feel guilty about that development. He had known that he would have to stoke her anger to get her to join him when he had struck out after dispatching Shaw, but the depth of her resentment was astounding even him, given her relatively innocuous background.

She had been alone for a while, he knew, but Charles had protected her for years, pampered and spoiled her even. Apparently, Erik had unleashed something when he had convinced her to embrace her inner self and outer self together. True, she was a mighty ally and tool for his grander vision, but he vaguely feared the day that they truly disagreed about something important. He already suspected that she was questioning him and forming her own agenda where other mutants were concerned.

Erik cleared his throat of emotion, "No, she was firm. Just to give her love, but she didn't have anything else to say. And she definitely was against seeing you." His tone had softened by the end to lessen the blow of her refusal without admitting any room for Charles to hope again.

The strain of holding back so much emotion was starting to overwhelm Charles. He hiccuped his sob and rolled farther away from Erik. This rejection just topped the week and the month and the year he was having. He wasn't going to deny himself the opportunity for a good cry. Not now.

As soon as Erik felt Charles really release, he knew that he had accomplished his true reason for visiting. He needed to open Charles up and peer inside to know how he really was handling everything that had befallen him. He slowly engaged the wheelchair and rolled Charles within his grasp.

Swiftly kneeling before the chair-bound man, assuming a penitent posture, Erik paused, awaiting permission to speak again. Charles wouldn't look him in the eye at first, but eventually he couldn't resist the physical looking to go along with his mind that had not stopped looking from the moment the helmet had been lifted in the kitchen.

_Damn him twice_, Charles thought. _He is my greatest weakness_.

Reaching a shaking hand tentatively to brush along Erik's forehead and up into his hairline, Charles looked at his lover through glassy eyes awash in regret and salty tears. Erik lifted a hand to wipe at a few drops with a calloused thumb. Charles started to take big gasps of air, obviously trying to slow down his sobbing.

"No, no," Erik soothed with his voice low and velvety. "Don't hold in your tears, my love. I came to see them, to help you shed them. I knew that you were trying to hold them. But I'm here now, you can give them to me to carry for you."

At the longed-for truth of the words, Charles leaned forward into Erik's embrace. He felt that he had fallen so far, he would never be the person he had been. But Erik's insight and presence shifted the grief and regret out of Charles' heart where it had been festering for months. His frame shook with the release, and Erik held him gently but firmly, lending the strength he had promised.

Erik understood Charles' complete collapse as only another man who held himself to the highest standards imaginable could. Each of them was his own worst critic and each other's biggest champion. Invariably, each came up short in his own eyes. But the struggle had always continued, if not for themselves, then for others and other objectives.

Charles had begun to doubt that he could go on at all for anything.

Not until he had laid eyes on Charles in the wheelchair, struggling to complete his tea ritual, had Erik realized they had both been diminished by their separation. Where Charles was now dealing with physical challenges, Erik was struggling with the emotion paralysis that came from severing himself from Charles on a daily basis. He had become accustomed to the openness he could share with Charles.

Realizing that there would never be another time or place for such an experience again poured ice through his veins.

They stayed in this posture for a long time, breathing and warming each other, listening to each other's thoughts as they passed between the two with little form and big meaning.

_Missed . . ._

_Tried . . ._

_Abandoned . . ._

_Couldn't . . ._

_Didn't . . . _

_Wanted . . ._

Erik apologized for everything he had ever done to cause Charles any pain. Sincerely. Charles apologized for not truly understanding Erik's motives and needs. They both apologized for not listening well enough to the other, for letting other people, other actions, other ideas get between the truth that was the two of them and their affection and need for each other.

When they felt a small amount of calm return to both of their minds, Charles let go and sat back, laughing quietly at the tear stains on Erik's shoulder. He brushed at them fastidiously until Erik caught the hand and held it fast.

"Raven sends her love but didn't feel she could return here. Too many memories, she said," Erik informed Charles. "I, on the other hand, wanted to immerse myself in my memories of this place, of you." He tried the smile again.

Charles began to feel silly sitting there with cooling tea and drying tears. "I know," he said tearfully. "I understand. Tell her I understand." He squeezed his eyes shut another moment.

Erik rubbed at the back of Charles' upper arms. "I already did. I knew you did," he assured Charles. Then he tucked Charles' head under his chin and added, "I told her we've all made sacrifices. She has seen people come and go with us in just the six months we've been abroad."

Erik continued to rub at Charles' back with his brown curls tickling his chin, but Charles had stiffened. "Sacrifices?" he questioned Erik quietly. "What sacrifices?"

Not sensing anything amiss, Erik replied, "Well, you know, brothers and sisters have been caught. They have been sent into no-win situations. The burden of leadership, Charles. You know what it's like. The decisions are never easy, but you have to live with them."

Charles extracted himself from Erik's embrace. When he was fully disentangled, he took hold of his wheels and pushed himself back a foot. Then he folded his hands demurely in his lap, tilted his head to the left, and pronounced, "I don't think I catch your meaning, brother. What situations? What decisions?" He narrowed his eyes to let Erik know that he would be listening very carefully for lies.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Erik leaned back into the chair and crossed his legs. His hands gripped the armrests as he tamped down his natural reaction to being questioned about his actions. This was Charles, after all, his equal. He could discuss this calmly and rationally, just as Charles seemed to be behaving.

For now.

Waving a hand abstractedly in the air, Erik quietly offered, "We are an underground group fighting against governments and other entities that are trying to exterminate mutants before we even find each other. This is war, Charles. And foot soldiers usually sustain the heaviest casualties." His posture and eyes dared Charles to contradict him.

The young professor refused to back down.

"And just how many of these no-win situations have you sent my _sister_ into, dear Erik?" he asked with sarcasm dripping from each syllable.

Rolling his eyes, Erik replied, "A few. But she made them work. She's very smart and resourceful, your sister. I have been pleasantly surprised on a number of occ-"

_Damn him thrice_, Charles thought.

But the sound he made out loud was very akin to a snarl. Erik was so taken aback by the sound that he actually startled in his seat. In even the deepest moments of passion, he had never heard Charles utter such a guttural noise. He didn't really think him capable of such a thing.

"Erik!" Charles growled out. "How dare you! How dare you treat her like she's disposable? She's-" and his words failed him. He was dumbfounded that his influence over Erik's compassion and empathy had worn off so completely so quickly. He was a blood-driven cold-hearted monster again.

_Maybe he was more of a monster than I let myself see before_, Charles admitted to himself before shuddering at the thought of encouraging his sister to accompany said monster.

He tried again. "I know that I had to, and still have to, let her live her own life," Charles said. "But I didn't have to entrust her to someone who would simply write her off as collateral damage while he awaited her return from some dangerous assignment. What, did you have an office from which you worked? Or were you just ensconced in some secure location while you planned your next move, General?" Charles couldn't help scowling at the other man and 'pacing' around the room in his chair as he remonstrated.

Erik stood abruptly, gathering his considerable gall and dignity around himself like a cape. "I don't have to explain myself to you of all people," he retorted, clearly keeping a short rein on his own temper in light of Charles' berating of him.

"Oh, no, certainly! You don't owe me anything after destroying most everything I have held dear in this world. You are paid in full there!" he yelled.

Erik turned toward Charles who had stopped as far away from the German as he could in his circuitous route around the large room. The cool sea green eyes narrowed and shot precise laser hits into Charles' remaining hope for 'Magneto' as he was now known, ignoring his friends' pleas for no more destruction.

"As long as the ledger is balanced, I'll leave you then," Erik managed without any discourtesy.

"Balanced!" Charles let out loudly.

But Erik cut him off before he could utter another sound. "Yes, Charles. I have accomplished what I came here to do, and I believe you have gained what you needed as well. I will show myself out."

Charles let him leave without another word.

Erik made it to the kitchen for his helmet without meeting another living creature. As he was just donning the cranial apparatus, a very clear image of Charles the first time he used Cerebro was projected directly into his cortex. He halted the descent of the helmet to see if there was any more to the message from the library.

There was.

_Sacrificing all of your pawns and knights will not necessarily win you the game, my King. There are other strategies_.

Erik carefully formed his reply: _But if the King surrenders, the game is lost. Protect your king at all costs. You taught me that, Charles. I was much more reckless about it before your instruction_.

Erik slid the helmet over his ears and left.

Back in the library, Charles was bereft again. _I_? he thought. _I taught you to protect yourself, yes. But I also told you that you didn't have to be alone on the field of battle. You could protect others as well as yourself_.


End file.
